Susan's Recipes

Killer Knish

OK, OK, here's knish. It is modified from one I saw in Molly O'Neill's “New York Cookbook”. Go out and buy it; it’s great.
A knish is thin dough wrapped around a filling. The filling is traditionally mashed taters with schmaltz. This gut bomb is baked. If you can't finish it, you can always use it to defend yourself.

Preparation

1. Make a nice stiff dough. Use at least two cups of flour, a tsp. of baking powder, 1/2 tsp. of salt, 2 tbs. of Crisco, and a couple of eggs. Dump your dry ingredients in a big bowl, make a volcano top in the middle, put in your wet ingredients, and mix together. Add a tsp. or so of icy water, if need be. Dump the dough and knead on a floured surface until it makes a ball. Don't work the dough to death but get it satiny. Pat oil over the dough ball and give it a rest in a cool place for an hour. Put a rag over the top of the bowl (to keep the Jupiter people out - see rec.pet.cats). Preheat the oven to, oh, about 350 degrees.
2. OK, now make the filling. A basic one is two cups mashed taters, leftover mashed taters find a use here; two cups chopped onion; schmaltz to taste - about 3 tbs.; some chopped grebenes are nice (chicken skin cracklings - the low cholesterol ones); lots of ground black pepper (I like to use serrano peppers; salt. Mix all this together.
3. Roll out the dough into a rectangle. I cut out squares of dough and put a blob of filling in the middle. Then I pull the corners together, pinch it together, and place on a greased baking pan. Bake until brown, about 30 minutes.
4. Don't complain to me about the cholesterol load here.
5. Variations: Use one cup taters and one cup kasha; put in some chopped chicken livers; etc.

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