The Jewish holiday of Passover begins Wednesday night, and Easter is just around the corner on Sunday.
And, whether you’re a traditionalist looking for bitter herbs and roasted eggs or you’re looking at a light Easter brunch our next guest says: Why not do it Sonoran style?
We live in the Sonoran desert, which has its own distinct culinary flavor and Tucson cookbook author and food photographer Jackie Alpers is on the line now to tell us more about her Southwestern take on Easter and Passover.
Full conversation
LAUREN GILGER: Let's begin with Passover. Since it begins tonight, this is a holiday where food's really kind of at the center, right. There's this traditional Seder meal, right. Six symbolic foods that retell the story of the Israelites' exodus from Egypt. What are some Sonoran approaches to this meal?
JACKIE ALPERS: Well, let's start with the Seder plate. So one of the centers of the Seder plate is the bitter herbs and arugula, which grows wild in the Sonoran Desert, is a great example of a Sonoran Desert herb that you can use and also you can use for Easter in a salad.
GILGER: I love that. I didn't know arugula grew wild here.
ALPERS: It does.
GILGER: When I think of this time of year, I think of deviled eggs. That probably goes for both holidays. You have a chipotle deviled eggs. Tell us about this one.
ALPERS: Well, so I love deviled eggs, and I kind of fancied them up a little bit with some chipotle, which is definitely Sonoran. And you can add caviar, but just make sure it's not beluga caviar, which is not kosher for Passover, and capers for an elegant deviled egg that works perfectly for Passover. Now, with any ingredients for Passover, just make sure you check your ingredients and make sure they are kosher for Passover, if that is important to you.
GILGER: OK. So, Jackie, you are are famous for a recipe that is really cool called albondigas matzo ball soup. A Sonoran, a Mexican take on this. Tell us about that recipe.
ALPERS: Well, that's one of my favorites. So I love albondigas, but I wanted it to be Sonoran. So I just kind of switched out the albondingas meatballs for matzo balls and kept the whole, and kept the rest of it basically the same. So it's kind of a spicier, more Sonoran version of matzo ball soup, but it definitely has a kind of Sonoran flavored spin with chilis and Mexican oregano that brings it back around to the desert.
GILGER; Meatballs and matzo balls. I love it. OK, you have some other matzah kind of based recipes, right? You have tostadas, matzah nachos, things like that. How does that work?
ALPERS: Oh, yeah. So I actually love matzah all year round. And so I had a lot of fun coming up with matzah based recipes that, for Passover that are also Sonoran. So I've got matzah tostadas, which I made with beans and queso fresco and the traditional kind of Sonoran toppings of radishes, maybe a little bit of peas.
That's really great on matzah. It's not really that different from a tostada shell. I mean, they're crispy, and it has the same basic vibe. And then matzah nachos, which is just, it's super easy to make, just crumble up matzah into the size of, like, tortilla chips and then put all of your favorite nacho toppings on and put it under the broiler for a second, and you've got delicious nachos.
GILGER: All right, let's talk about Easter then. You, I think, traditionally eat lamb on Easter. My memories of the Easter meal are always like this very Midwestern scalloped potato dish. What are some of your ideas here?
ALPERS: Well, I, I'm not really a big lamb eater, and I know that that's also a center of the of the Seder plate, but I. I tend to go more for chicken. And I've got a mole marinated. It's a mole kind of marinade. It's inspired by mole, but not really mole that I marinate chicken in and then grill it and serve with chilies and salsa.
And like I said, just check your ingredients and make sure they're all kosher. But they should all be. All the ingredients should be fine for Passover, and it brings it around to, like, a sense of place. So, you know, like, both Easter and Passover are important holidays, but in the Sonoran desert, it's, I think it's always nice to bring them back to a sense of place and where we are here.
GILGER: I read that a traditional kind of Easter dish in Mexico is lamb barbacoa. Have you ever tried that?
ALPERS: No.
GILGER: Sounds good, right?
ALPERS: It does.
GILGER: Let's talk about desserts before I let you go, though. What do you make here? I mean, like, you think of spring desserts. There's a lot of candy involved in Easter, especially what's on your menu?
ALPERS: Well, I'm making a flourless chocolate cake, which is more of a Passover dish to me. I mean it goes either way. But you can Sonoran-ize that by adding a little bit of cinnamon, a little bit of red chili and making it more like a Mexican chocolate flavoring to your traditional kind of flourless chocolate cake.
GILGER: That sounds very chocolatey, very rich.
ALPERS: It's very yummy.
GILGER: Yeah. Do you have any Easter basket kind of candy ideas for us? I know you do some melted chocolate candies. You've talked about your popcorn that you make before. It's like a candy popcorn.
ALPERS: That's a fun one. Well, yeah. You know, like, I'm actually not a big fan of Peeps, but Peeps can be, but they're really cute and I think they're really adorable around like to decorate a cake. So you can even do like a store bought cake and then kind of just put them around the outside and that's really cute.
And there's also, I've also got like a recipe that I make for a like a coconut, coconut nest kinds of cake where you can put the little coconut on top and then put jelly beans on top. And that's adorable.
GILGER: I love that idea. All right. One thing we have not talked about, Jackie, is probably important here, which is a vegetable. It's important in the Seder meal. Every meal has to have a vegetable. What kind of vegetables do you look at this time of year? It is spring after all.
ALPERS: Well, yeah, and I think a great, my probably my favorite spring vegetable is asparagus. And so I dry fry it in just in a hot pan and it's makes it very tender but still keeps that green to it. So that's definitely my kind of go to vegetable for.
And it's super easy. I mean all you really need is the asparagus, a little bit of balsamic and some flaky sea salt in a dry pan.
GILGER: OK. So have you ever heard of anyone else doing a Sonoran take on these kind of very traditional holidays in this way? What do people say when they hear about this?
ALPERS: I haven't. Now Pati Jinich does have, is Jewish and she does talk about Mexican-Jewish, her influence of being Mexican and Jewish at the same time. And so she is. But not Sonoran. I feel like especially Sonoran cuisine in general is kind of underrepresented. Overall, nationally, people understand Tex Mex and New Mexico food, but they aren't really familiar with Sonoran-style cuisine.
And so I do feel like there isn't a lot of Sonoran recipes out there. So if you're looking for more, you can always visit my Substack, which is SonoranCorner at Substack. And there's a whole bunch there.
GILGER: Yeah. You've got Sonoran takes on just about everything. But maybe we'll break some new ground with you here this, this year.
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