Just because my clients keep a strict kosher household does not mean that they do not follow food trends. Whatever is new and cute, they want to eat too and it’s my job to figure out how to make it. Kosher, that is. When I first started cooking for these clients, the kosher world and its strict laws were completely new to me. They would point at pictures in cookbooks like The French Laundry or Bouchon Bakery and say, “I want that, but make it kosher.” They would, of course, be pointing to the most dairy, pork, or shellfish infused dishes possible.
One of the basic kosher kitchen rules (and there are many) is not to put milk in anything that has meat. It’s not brain surgery to realize that one should baste a roast with margarine (a flavor disaster), but finding appropriate substitutions for dessert ingredients is more complicated.
Recently, I was asked to recreate the Cronut, which, if you have been hiding under a social media rock, is a cross between a croissant and a donut. After being written up in New York Magazine, a publicity storm ensued documenting lines outside Dominique Ansel Bakery in Soho. The bakery makes only three hundred of the coveted fried dough a day creating an underground black-market with scalpers reselling Cronuts at up to one hundred dollars a pop.
I have never had a Cronut myself. In fact, I have never even seen one in person, nor do I really care to. But, apparently, my clients do, because after ignoring their requests and hoping that they would forget about the fad and find something a little simpler for me to recreate, I finally caved in and tried to figure out how to make the Cronut kosher.
If you have ever wondered why the typical kosher dessert looks so heavy and dense, it’s because most desserts are made under a parev designation, indicating that that no dairy or meat ingredient or utensil (spoon, bowl, pan, oven, etc.) has come into contact with said item. Parev is a neutral designation. Once the item is prepared, it can be eaten with a meat meal, which is necessary since the majority of the large scale, multi-coursed dinners that I prepare are centered around huge hunks of meat.
A few years ago when different flavored marshmallows were trending all over the place, I was given the task to figure out how to recreate them for my clients. Homemade marshmallows are not that difficult to make, but because the typical industrial strength gelatin is made from ground up pig hoofs (which is decidedly not kosher, even to the lay person) the trick was finding an appropriate substitute. After two weeks of trial and error, I ended up using a kosher brand of fish gelatin. I panicked when the smell of gefilte fish hit my nostrils as I poured boiling hot sugar into a furiously whipping Kitchenaide mixer filled with foaming fish bones. But when the marshmallows cooled and set, the smell subsided. Not only were the marshmallows super cute, but they tasted good too, or so I was told.
I must note that there are now a few good brands of kosher gelatin that do not smell like fish and a few good kosher candy makers who specialize in making kosher marshmallows. But because marshmallows are not so special anymore, my clients, of course, don’t want them.
Working for these clients, I have had to come to terms with the fact that their desires are based on how unusual a dish or treat is and what it looks like on the plate, not because of how it tastes or how good it is for you. For the first few years, I tried to talk them into using only seasonal ingredients and sustainably raised meat and fish products. I perused the local Greenmarkets and searched out organic grass-fed kosher meat, but this was uninteresting to them. When the culture of the household is more, more, more, what’s the use in trying to limit your product to seasonal and organic?
I now choose menu items based on the degree of difficulty, and more over, the hopes that they will be the only ones to have this item on their table. There is a lot of entertaining in this ultra-orthodox community, all centered on food. It’s its own form of entertainment. A successful meal is where one or more guests exclaim: What’s that, and how can I make it too? (The secret is rarely shared.)
Obviously, because I have been working for these clients for close to seven years, I feed on this energy as well. I often agree to make something that I have never attempted before, kosher or not, and when faced with the challenge of outdoing myself at every meal, I obsess about the process. When I am running in the park, I think about infusing oils and curing duck breast. When I am sitting on the subway, I think about how I am going to organize my time when I have four different pastry doughs to make and let rest before I have to use them all at the same time.
Much of my process also involves calling friends regaling them with stories of, “you will never guess what I am trying to make for my kosher clients now.” I get totally wrapped up in the drama of how many times I tried and failed to make something, and the process that finally works. It’s like I am at war and every little battle counts.
My clients have a serious sweet tooth and are hooked on fancy treats. According to them, one would think that all the goyim in New York are walking around chomping on Cronuts when I have yet to meet one person who has actually seen one in person, let alone tasted one. But it’s my job to create the best knockoff possible and I take it very seriously. I am like the Chinatown designer handbag maker. Give me the pattern and I will recreate something that looks pretty damn good, that is, if you have never seen the real thing.
I think that the reason I have lasted so long with these clients is that on a deep level, I totally get the desire for the forbidden. Tell me that I can’t have something, and I want it more than ever. Craving and desire is a drug in and of itself, not contingent on getting the object (man, job, handbag, Cronut). I get high on the thought that once I obtain my desire, I will somehow feel better or more complete. In reality, when I do get a little taste of what I thought I was missing, what I am usually left with is a sickeningly sweet version of a prize and a spiritual stomachache to match.
After finally caving into clients desires, I faced the challenge of creating the kosher Cronut. I spent a few days of research and experimentation involving more oil sodden flat dough than I care to elaborate on. The reason why croissants are so light and flaky is that butter is folded and refolded into yeast dough creating very thin layers that steam and puff in a very hot oven. Butter has milk solids, which creates the steam; margarine, my parev substitute, does not. Needless to say, I finally came up with a passable knockoff.
New York Magazine describes Cronuts as “tast(ing) a lot like a classic glazed doughnut, but pretty much more awesome, and its layers peel apart like those in a mille crepe cake.” My version was decidedly not as flaky, with an almond cream on the inside and a raspberry and vanilla bean glaze on top.
I displayed my little jewels on a long rectangular cake stand and set them on my client’s granite countertop. Like the Chinatown knockoff, they looked pretty good from afar. And at the end of the day, that’s all that really mattered.
Anya Regelin is a freel-lance writer, private chef, and the Deputy-Editor of The Inquisitive Eater. The Tasteless Chef is a regular column chronicling her exploits and misadventures in (and around) the kitchen.
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