Everything But the Latkes

Plus: The $29 Hot Dog at Mischa, a NYT Cookie Party, and Dinner at Jenny Rosenstrach's.

Hey everyone,

You’re not going to sell a lot of newsletter subscriptions if you title your newsletter “Vegetarian Chopped Liver!”

But that’s what I made on Thursday night for a group of friends as an appetizer and they gobbled it up like it was manna from heaven. What, exactly, is vegetarian chopped liver? It’s basically a paté that you make with caramelized onions, mushrooms, soaked cashews, and hard-boiled eggs; plus paprika, cayenne, salt, and pepper. (I topped it with pickled red onion, pomegranate seeds, and dill.)

The recipe comes to us from Leah Koenig (see here) and it’s a nostalgic one for me, because my grandma Ronnie was obsessed with vegetarian chopped liver. She turned up her nose at regular chopped liver — “Don’t eat that! It’s an organ meat,” she’d warn me, never explaining what was so bad about organ meats — but the vegetarian stuff she’d buy by the tubful at Publix in Florida.

It’s a great thing to serve this week if you’re celebrating Hanukkah, which starts this Thursday night. Obviously you’ll also serve latkes and I’m nothing if not a latke expert, having made 300 of them several times for my annual latke party.

But what do you actually serve for dinner? May I humbly suggest stuffed cabbage?

I used Dorie Greenspan’s recipe from Everyday Dorie which I’ll embed for you here as a PDF….