This family recipe has been passed down for several generations and was first written down when Evelyn Silverman Reinfeld was in the ICU. She told her daughter to fetch a notepad from the nurses station so she could dictate the recipe, ensuring it wouldn’t be lost.  

This classic matzo ball soup recipe produces a flavorful broth, chunks of chicken and vegetables. Be sure to cook the matzo balls separately in water to keep the broth clear.

An icon of the Ashkenazi culinary canon, kreplach have a centuries old history. They take time and care to make, but you can simplify this recipe from Anna Gershenson’s Latvian family by preparing the broth a day or two in advance.

This recipe is inspired by one Jacky Boudreaux’s mother Helen and aunt Rose enjoyed when they were little and lived in a one-room stucco house in the small town of Proszowice, outside of Krakow. 

Tzimmes is traditionally served on Rosh Hashanah when the gold carrot slices represent coins, but many families prepare it throughout the year as well. 

Mitchell Davis’s mother Sondra always insisted on chopping her chicken livers with a mezzaluna, but you can make her recipe with a standard chef’s knife. The addition of horseradish and mustard punch up the rich livers. 

From pushcarts on the Lower East Side to delis and countless homes, pickles are an essential part of the Ashkenazi culinary canon. If you’ve never fermented foods at home, this is a good place to start. The recipe is simple and straightforward. 

Chopped herring, sometimes mixed with onions and apples, is known as forshmak, which means pre-taste or appetizer in Yiddish, but you can also serve it alongside a salad for a light and easy dinner. 

P’tcha is a divisive dish. A glistening aspic made with the hoof of a calf or cow, it’s an acquired taste and texture, equally beloved and despised, depending upon who you’re speaking to.

This cold and sour soup is made from sorrel, a green that is typically available during the spring and start of summer. There are different versions of the soup — some sweet-and-sour, others enriched with sour cream or eggs. This simple one comes from chef Peter Hoffman and his German father, though the soup’s early roots trace back points farther east in places like Poland and Lithuania. 

This recipe lived in our family cooking notebook for decades, passed down from one  generation to the next for 40 years now. It is known as ‘the Jewish Buns,’” shares cookbook author Alissa Timoshkina.

This classic noodle kugel from Mindy Martorana's family balances a rich eggy center with noodles that get slightly crisp and browned on top.

Women in Barbara Taranto’s community used to gather before celebrations to cook together, preparing Ashkenazi staples like kugel, brisket, kasha, chopped liver, and these knishes. For meat meals, they made them with potatoes — and for dairy celebrations, there were cheese and rice knishes. 

Cookbook author Shannon Sarna’s recipe for one of the most iconic Jewish dishes hails from her husband’s grandmother, Baba Billie, who made the crispy-edged and creamy-hearted dish. 

While many yapsuk (also spelled yapchik) recipes call for meat, this rendition from David Glick's family is entirely vegetarian. Think of it as a large latke that's baked instead of fried.

"The key to good matzo brei lies in two things: very seasoned, very caramelized onions; and properly soaked matzo boards,” explains cookbook author Alison Roman. You will find both in her recipe. 

Also known as farfel, egg barley is a pasta that’s made by grating a ball of dough into little pieces that can look like barley. This rendition from chef Ian Boden is cooked in a schmaltzy stock. 

Like all latke recipes, the success of this one lies in getting as much liquid out of the potatoes as possible before frying. Try placing the grated spuds in a clean kitchen towel and ringing it out.

This blintz recipe from cookbook author Adeena Sussman can be made sweet or savory. If you’ve never made blintzes or crepes, don’t be discouraged by the first few. It can take a bit of practice.

Fresh and dried mushrooms add depth to this kasha varnishkes recipe from Stacey Harwood-Lehman, a writer and the poet laureate of the New York City farmers markets.

Anna Gershenson’s tongue recipe gets its sweetness from raisins and tang from fresh lemon. Like brisket, tongue is a tough cut which needs to be cooked for a long time to become tender, so don’t rush the cooking time. 

When we connect with Ashkenazi families for the JFS archive, stuffed cabbage recipes come up more than almost any other recipe. Every family has their own rendition with slight tweaks. this one is heavy on tomatoes.

While the word klops in Yiddish translates to meatballs, it’s the name for this meatloaf, which is stuffed with two eggs that add a decorative touch. 

Typically, pastrami is reserved for meals in a deli or takeout, but it can be made at home. This recipe is the textbook definition of a project recipe, so be sure to read it carefully and plan accordingly. 

While brisket is a cut of beef that’s used by many communities, it holds an important place in Ashkenazi cooking. It’s a large cut and needs to be cooked low and slow to turn tender. Look for a whole brisket, which has two parts: the point or deckle and the flat.

Seared, smothered in onions, and braised in a mixture of chili sauce, grape jelly, and red wine, this brisket is tender and just the right balance of sweet and sour. According to Rachel Barnett, who shared the recipe, the chili sauce has to be Heinz — other brands just won’t work. 

“This recipe is a nod to the Ashkenazi tradition of cooking savory dishes with prunes, as well as to a common practice of those living in the Soviet Union to cook the popular Georgian dish chicken tabaka,” explains cookbook author Alissa Timoshkina.

"To have cholent in a Yiddish home, in prewar Poland, in Lodz, was a must. There was no Shabbat without the cholent," explains Auschwitz-Birkenau survivor David Lenga. This is his family's recipe.

Before immigrating to the U.S., cookbook author Claire Saffitz’s great-grandfather worked as a baker. “That explains the handful of recipes passed down on my mother’s side. One of my favorites is this mandel bread,” she shares. 

This recipe comes from cookbook author Chanie Apfelbaum’s maternal grandmother Chaya. “I still have the original card she wrote the recipe on,” Chanie says. It’s made with oil instead of butter, which makes it pareve and gives the batter a velvety smooth texture. 

Nearly all of the written recipes from Ian Boden's grandmother Pauline — and many of the family photos — were lost in a house fire. The one recipe that survived was this one apple cake. There are many renditions of “Jewish” apple cake. This one is made with a bit of apple cider or orange juice to help keep it moist. 

Babka originated in the early 1800s, according to culinary scholar Gil Marks. Home cooks would spread jam or cinnamon on leftover challah dough and bake it into loaves. Today, it’s readily available at bakeries, but is a wonderful project for a home baker.

There are a couple of origin stories behind this cookie, but according to the “Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets,” it descends from Hemstrought’s bakery in Utica, where they were called halfmoon cookies. Today, they are an essential part of Jewish New York. 

After the Holocaust, Yonit Naftali’s grandmother Paula had nearly nothing left. One of the things she clung to was her mother’s recipes, including this one for a layered Hungarian Jewish sweet that’s often made for Purim. 

Known for their distinctive triangular shape, hamantaschen are the essential Ashkenazi Purim sweet. This recipe, which calls for orange juice in the dough, comes from baker Sarah Magid and her grandmother Eva. Sarah believes Eva originally learned it from a community cookbook. 

Within the Ashkenazi culinary canon, the word “rugelach” is relatively new. The sweet derived from the crescent-shaped kipfel, explains culinary scholar Gil Marks, and became one of the best known Jewish sweets in the U.S. This recipe from Larry Finkelstein is deeply chocolatey.