Jewish Meat Knishes Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is a Jewish knish? ›

Knish is a classic baked or fried Jewish street food. Traditionally, knishes are mashed potatoes or kasha (roasted buckwheat grain) wrapped in a thin layer of dough. This hearty kosher comfort food has modern variations, including pizza, sweet potato, and sweet cheese with fruit.

Other varieties of fillings include beef, chicken, sweet potatoes, black beans, or spinach. Knishes may be round, rectangular, or square. They may be entirely covered in dough or some of the filling may peek out of the top. Sizes range from those that can be eaten in a single bite hors d'oeuvre to sandwich-sized.

“You never get tired of eating them,” said Bronsther. If you've always wondered the difference between a knish and a pierogi, the pierogi is typically fried or boiled, not baked, resulting in a dumpling texture rather than a pastry shell. But the kitchen full of cooks Sunday was clearly partial to the knish.

Round knishes can have sweet or savory fillings — potato, kasha (buckwheat groats), mushroom, spinach, or sweet cheese with fruit fillings whereas square are generally potato, through and through, the crispy exterior a result of frying.

Knishes are fist-size snacks consisting of mashed potatoes wrapped in paper-thin pastry dough and then baked or fried. Other varieties include fillings made from sweet potatoes, mushrooms, spinach, broccoli, cabbage, cheese, or kasha, which is made from buckwheat groats.

There is nothing fancy or unusual about any of the dough ingredients – mostly pantry staples like flour, eggs, oil, white vinegar, baking powder, and kosher salt – with the one exception of schmaltz, which is rendered chicken fat and has so much great flavor. This is very common addition in Jewish food.

There's no wrong way to eat a knish, but we like ours served hot, with a side of good mustard. Enjoy one as an appetizer, midday snack, or served alongside a soup or sandwich.

The knish, when it's done right, is just as delicious as the bagel. There's a filling of onions cooked to golden caramel in chicken fat, then painted onto a belly-hugging potato canvas. That carby mass is then wrapped in thin, pliant dough and blistered in the oven. It's great with deli mustard.

There are also many other types of stuffed dough dishes that are similar to knishes, such as pierogies, empanadas, and ravioli. Sure there are. Perogies, pups in a blanket, hot pockets, .. calzone if you think about it, and others I'm sure.

LATKE (pronounced 🙃 LAT-ka) is like a Jewish hash brown. It's also called a potato pancake! 👌Served with sour cream & apple sauce. POTATO KNISH is pastry dough on the outside & 😜mashed potatoes on the inside!

Should knish be warm or cold? ›

Bake and serve the knish: Place the knishes on the prepared baking sheet. Brush the tops with beaten egg. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the knishes are golden brown. Serve warm or at room temperature, with mustard.

In Polish pierogi is the plural form of pieróg (“dumpling”), but in English the word pierogi is usually treated as either singular or plural. In Polish tradition, the dumpling was introduced to the nation by the Dominican missionary St. Hyacinth, who died in Kraków in 1257.

A pillow of mashed potato, wrapped in dough and deep-fried.

*Knishes can be kept in the refrigerator for 7-10 days if left in vacuum sealed pouch. Please do not freeze knishes. Place the Kugel in it's frozen state on a flat surface/tray and allow to completely defrost (thaw).

There's no wrong way to eat a knish, but we like ours served hot, with a side of good mustard. Enjoy one as an appetizer, midday snack, or served alongside a soup or sandwich.