Pictures of Onion Challah

   Tamar of Petach Tikva, Israel, recently sent me pictures of the Easy Awesome Onion Challah she made on two different occasions.  This is what she said:

Thank you so much for this recipe Yosefa! I've made it twice now...

Easy Awesome Onion Challah

Last week I thought I would try to throw the ingredients for a small batch of challah (egg bread) in my food processor and try to get some fresh bread with minimal time and effort.  It worked.  This week I added onions and it was awesome!  I want to thank my dad for cutting up the onions.  Sometimes my eyes burn all day.  At home my father wears goggles when cutting onions.  I stick a spoon in my mouth.  Can you share any tricks for keeping onions from burning your eyes?

Add to a food processor or mixer of choice:
1 tablespoon dry active yeast
2 cups (0.5 liters) of warm or room temperature water
1/2 cup (65 grams) your choice of honey and/or sugar, more if you like it sweet (I used about 2 parts sugar and 1 part honey.)
2 teaspoons salt
Almost 1/2 cup (0.1 liters) total oil and margarine.  You can use less, but using at least a full tablespoon each of margarine and oil makes great challah.  Feel free to use olive oil.
2 eggs

Briefly mix with a regular blade, or dough blade, if you have one.

Measure 7 cups (1.7 liters) of flour and add as much as comfortably fits in your food processor.  Mix on slow for a few seconds after the mixture looks homogeneous. (Save the rest of the flour until after the dough rests.)

Dump into a large, lightly greased bowl, and let rest.  If you used a very small mixer, add more flour after you move to the bigger bowl.  You want a very loose dough at this point.  A little thicker than muffin batter.  My son actually reminded me at this point that the dough needed to rest.  When my husband tried to peak, my son told him that the dough was taking a nap.  You can let the dough rest while you buy groceries, clean the house, or cook other food.  If you're short on time, try this:

Before you start mixing the dough, put a large oven safe bowl or pan with water in the bottom of your oven.   Turn the oven on high.  When the water is hot, turn off the oven.  Dip a tea towel in the hot water and ring out, then cover the dough bowl with the towel, so it doesn't actually touch the dough.  Put the bowl in the oven (with the bowl of water) when the oven is warm and cozy, but not hot enough to cook the dough or melt a plastic bowl.  With this method the dough will be ready for the next stage n 10-30 minutes.

This is a good time to chop and fry your onions.  Two red onions would be my preference.  Optional: Mix in poppy seeds.

When the dough looks bubbly and "well rested" (bigger), add more flour.  Use enough flour for the dough to be a cohesive mass that you can lift and stretch.  It does not need to be firm or dry enough to braid.  We are aiming for speed and flavor, not beauty, here.  Time permitting, you can let the dough rest again.  It will rise to about double in size.  Unless you are doubling the recipe, you do not need to "separate challah" for this amount of flour.

Grease two loaf pans and some muffin tins or a baking sheet.  I like olive oil for this.  Begin by stretching dough about 1/2 to 1 inch thick in the bottom of the loaf pans.  Add lots of onions, but stay away from the edges.  Add another layer of dough and work it into the bottom layer.  Do not fill the loaf pan.  If you still have a lot of extra room, add another layer of onions and dough.  Top with more onions, egg wash, and poppy or sesame seeds (optional).

If you have dough left over, make rolls.  Stretch small balls of dough in a circle like a tiny pizza, fill with onions, and fold closed.  Put in muffin tins or on a baking sheet and top like the loafs.

Bake at 350 F or 175 C until golden brown.  If you have a convection fan in your oven, now is the time to use it.



This method/recipe will also work without onions.

You might also like: Challah Basics 

UPDATE Dec. 20, 2010:  Yesterday morning I whipped together half a batch of the above recipe.  The whole thing fit in my food processor and I didn't do any additional kneading.  The dough rested in my warm with a hot towel on top while I chopped and fried one onion.  I added lots of poppy seeds straight to the pan with the onion.  Half a batch and one onion made 15 mini rolls, which I baked in a silicon muffin "tin."  I filled the dough full of onoins and used the extra onions to generously top the rolls before glazing in egg wash and baking just below 350 F or 175 C.  MY CONCLUSIONS: more filling is better; poppy seeds are awesome; I preffer red onoins.

Trip to the Market and Food Tricks

Before I talk about dinner, I want to share two tricks.  I think I learned this first trick from Alton Brown on Good Eats, but I couldn't find the clip, so maybe it was my imagination.  But it works!  Have a head of wilted lettuce?  Put it in a big bowl of cold water with a splash of vinegar.  Poof!  Magically, your lettuce can pass for fresh.  (20 minute soak recommended.)  And it will keep looking fresh in the fridge for a couple days.  You don't have to worry about it turning back to its old wilty self as soon as the guests arrive.  (I took pictures, but wilted lettuce isn't very appetizing, and would you really believe a before-and-after photo?)

The second trick is just a fancy way to cut a lemon.  It won't help you get the juice out, but it makes a nice presentation.

Today I went to the city market (shuk) with my favorite shuk-buddy - A Mother in Israel.  She showed me a great little Ethiopian spice shop.  I'm sure you'll hear more about it as soon as I successfully cook some of the legumes I picked up there.

At the shuk I bought the usual fruits and veggies which were in season, including persimmons, a pomegranate, 1.5 kilos of honey, pistachios, and a chunk of winter squash that they call pumpkin. It looked like a giant butternut squash on the outside, but it wasn't as sweet.  I'm going to use the leftovers to try something like Pumpkin Soup with Wine and Rosemary on Cooking Manager.  I actually have some rosemary I need to use up.  And of course, no trip to the shuk is complete without fish!  My favorite is wild Norwegian Salmon, but I try to stick to thinks that more local, and less expensive.  Today I picked up five whole Amnon, a kind of Tilapia native to the Sea of Galilee (The Kineret), but I think mine grew up on a fish farm in Northern Israel.  Tilapia does well in close quarters like a fish farm, so it is considered a very responsible choice, ecologically, and there's no concern of mercury.   Amnon is a favorite of my mother-in-law, but when she was visiting I was too scared of all those little bones to make it.  These fish were a little bigger than what I tried the first time, but I think I still swallowed a tiny bone.

We had guests tonight; not the best time to experiment.  I usually compensate with extra dishes in case they don't all work out.  Usually there is something for everyone and everything is tasty, even if it's not what I expected.  Today was an exception, with burnt Ethiopian chick peas reminiscent of my first popcorn attempt, to bland squash that didn't cook in time.  Fortunately, there were enough successful dishes for a well balanced meal.  The couscous was okay without the chick peas and my guests weren't scared off when face-to-face with a whole fish.  I think the consensus was that it was fun to eat.  Not exactly a quick bite, but nice for sitting and talking to your guests.  I recommend having something like a trash bowl on or near the table in order to get some bones off your plate to make room for other food or further dissecting the fish.

I rinsed each fish thoroughly to make sure no scales were hanging around.  Then I started to make a sort of homemade mayonnaise: One egg, a splash of vinegar, and mustard in a food processor, then drizzle in olive oil.  Then I threw in a bunch of fresh dill (no stems), pulse, then half a red onion, pulse until well chopped. I smeared that all over the inside and outside of the fish.  Baked in a preheated 205 C/400 F degree oven for 20-30 minutes covered, 5 minutes uncovered.  I found it to be very delicate and slightly sweet.

I also made a version of the salad mentioned in my pomegranate post, except I used romaine and parsley instead of baby greens.