"matzo" news and stories

Passover starts at sundown tomorrow and we've got you covered over at AOL Food. Check out our Matzo Ball 101 (the secret ingredient, as we reveal, is schmaltz -- more than a sentimental moment, it's literally chicken fat!) and oodles of other recipes including a delectable-lookin' Merlot-drenched beef brisket with prunes. So take a gander before you hustle out the door to do your shopping tonight.

Got a knockout Passover recipe? Share it in the comments!

Passover starts Saturday night, the holiday during which Jews give up all leavened products for a period of 7 or 8 days. Instead, we eat matzo. Stacks and stacks of matzo. However, until I saw this picture, I never really thought about how beautiful such a basic food item could be. Thanks Ohad*, for the lovely image!

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Passover, the holiday that lasts for a week and requires that observant Jews give up any leavened bread/grain product for the duration, starts this Saturday. My extended family isn't particularly observant, so while we're having a Seder dinner (the traditional Passover meal that includes a lengthy service called the Haggadah) we're cutting the Haggadah section of the meal down to a manageable five minutes.

The one place where we aren't breaking from tradition is that the actual meal will be Kosher, with no leavened dishes on the table. For the first time ever, I've been assigned a dish to bring (I guess my cousins figure that since I'm nearly 29, I can handle it). They asked me to bring a savory matzo kugel (pudding). I've made noodles kugels and sweet matzo kugels in the past, but I've never made exactly the thing that I've been asked to create.

So Slashfood readers, I need your help. Point me in the direction of your favorite savory matzo kugel recipes! If you have a family recipe that you are willing to share, pop it into the comments section. My family and I thank you!

As a veteran of many a barbeque competition, I've seen all kinds of weird cookers ranging from offset smokers made from repurposed propane tanks to contraptions cobbled together from stacks of 50-gallon drums. But I've never seen anything like the device pictured here.

This converted school bus has never seen pound one of pork, largely because it was designed to bake matzos for Passover. It's the invention of Rabbi Aaron Winternitz, leader of Congregation Mivtzar Hatorah in Spring Valley, N.Y. The inside of the bus is one gigantic oven, which Rabbi Winternitz had used to churn out 100 pounds of matzos for each of the past three Passovers.

The rabbi may not get to bake matzos this year because his makeshift bakery was shut down by a local building inspector after a neighbor complained of smoke late last Friday night. If Winternitz provides engineer's plans and switches from using gas to wood he may just be able to fire his contraption up in time for Passover. As any 'cuemaster worth his grease-stained overalls will tell you, wood's the way to go. Gas oven, feh!

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My real Jewish friends are off tonight having a "Break Passover" party, a little "celebration" where they're going to indulge in all those foods they couldn't eat for eight days - yeasted breads, cakes, pretty much anything that contains wheat, all of which were replaced during the Passover holiday with matzo.

Since the holiday is over, there might be a lot of leftover matzo. Sure, eating it at three meals for eight days, one might get sick of the hard, cracker-like flatbread, but no one ever gets sick of matzo ball soup. How could they? Matzo ball soup doesn't cause sickness, it cures it. It's known as Jewish penicillin, great for anytime of the year.