Jewish

To make these celery root latkes a little easier, you can shred the potatoes, onions, and celery root in a food processor with the shredding disk.

These savory rugelach are made with a cream-cheese-based dough, which softens very quickly. If the dough becomes tricky to work with, chill it until firm, then continue with the recipe.

Fennel Braised with Garlic Many Jews of Ashkenazic descent do not consume legumes during Passover, and, of this group, there are those who consider fennel a legume.

Vanilla bean and brandy accent the cake, and a few raspberries tint the peach topping a delicate pink.

Honey cake is often served during Rosh Hashanah because honey symbolizes wishes for "sweet" things to come. The cake becomes moister and its flavors deepen a day or two after it's made. Active time: 30 min Start to finish: 3 hr (includes cooling)

Dried Fruit and Nut Paste The Passover meal typically includes haroseth, which symbolizes the mortar used by Israelite slaves in Egypt. Recipes can vary greatly, depending on the country of origin. Haroseth is used as a condiment — almost like a chutney — and would be good with many kinds of roasted meat or poultry. This spicy version is based on a recipe from Yemen. Active time: 20 min Start to finish: 20 min

This recipe uses the fat and skin from about 4 chickens. You can save it up in your freezer over the course of time. For even more flavorful schmaltz, add a few cloves of garlic.

A rich candy-bar-like dessert that can be made in stages, and even completed three days before a party. Fresh strawberries make a nice garnish.

This recipe originally accompanied a story on a matzoh ball taste test.

These delicate fish dumplings are steamed and chilled between layers of cabbage leaves to keep them moist. Leftovers can be refrigerated for a couple of days.

If you can't find matzo cake meal, grind batches of regular matzo meal in a clean electric coffee/spice grinder until it has the consistency of flour.

The trick to pickling today is to find fresh herring or fresh salted herring. Once you've pickled it, use the herring in any favorite recipe, or just mix it as I do, with sour cream, red onion, and dill, to break the fast of Yom Kippur. It will keep for weeks.

Jews from Persia (present-day Iran) are especially proud of Queen Esther's role in the holiday of Purim. A favorite dish of Iranian children is halvah, which they eat after they break the fast of Esther, observed on Adar 13. At nursery school, Merissa learned this recipe for halvah from an Iranian teacher. In between tastes, the children played with Esther and Ahasuerus marionettes they had made with the help of their teacher.

For bigger matzo balls in this soup form mixture into 12 rounds and cook them for one hour ten minutes.

Not so many years ago dried "exotic" or wild mushrooms could be found only in fancy specialty shops, but no longer. Many good urban and suburban supermarkets now carry little packages of various varieties. And Asian markets are a great source for dried shiitake, also known as Chinese black mushrooms. The dried mushrooms are an optional addition to this soup, but they do add a deeper, woodsier flavor.

Begin this at least one day ahead. Serve with Potato-Leek Matzo Balls and steamed asparagus. What to drink: A full-bodied red with robust fruit, such as Zinfandel or Australian Shiraz.

Sephardim enjoy these confections on special occasions, especially Rosh Hashannah and Passover. Almost any fruit can be used in this process, but hard fruits require cooking and dried ones soaking. Although fruit is naturally sweet, the sugar in this recipe contributes additional sweetness and also intensifies the flavors, contributes body (so that the paste can be cut into shapes), and acts as a preservative.

This tsimmes created by Chef Lenard Rubin of the Phoenician Club in Phoenix, Arizona, is so good that I sometimes serve it alone without stuffing it into the chilies.