Kishke is the Ashkenazi sausage that threw the meat away. The casing was a length of beef intestine — kishke is the Slavic word for gut, and derma is Yiddish for the same thing, from German Darm — and the filling is not meat at all: flour and matzo meal, schmaltz, grated onion, carrot and celery, paprika, salt and pepper. It went into the pot beside the Sabbath cholent and cooked all night in the drippings, and it came out sliced, browned and very rich.
The diagnostic detail is what it does not contain. Polish kiszka (kaszanka) uses the same word for a buckwheat-and-pig’s-blood sausage; kashrut forbids blood and pork, so the Jewish version kept the grain, kept the casing, and swapped in poultry fat. Same name, same gut, and one is defined by the ingredient the other forbids.
Today most kishke is baked as a log in parchment and foil or in a peel-off plastic casing, and that is the method this recipe leads with. The common story that beef casings have been illegal in the United States since 1958 does not hold up; the real changes were BSE rules in 2004–2005, and beef middles are sold today. The casing version is given as the second route.
I have not made this one yet. The formula is the ratio that the published home recipes agree on, cross-checked against the descriptions of Joan Nathan and the kosher sausage notes in Marianski; it is untested.
Ingredients
FILLING (two logs, about 1.1 kg)
- 125 g (1 cup) all-purpose flour
- 115 g (1 cup) matzo meal
- 150 g (2/3 cup) schmaltz, soft — or vegetable shortening for a pareve kishke
- 1 large onion (about 200 g), finely grated
- 1 medium carrot (about 80 g), finely grated
- 1 rib celery (about 60 g), finely grated
- 8 g (1 1/2 tsp fine) salt
- 3 g (1 1/2 tsp) sweet paprika
- 1 g (1/2 tsp) black pepper
- 30–60 ml (2–4 Tbsp) cold water or chicken stock, only if the dough is dry
FOR BAKING AS A LOG
- 2 sheets parchment and 2 sheets heavy foil, about 40 cm each
OR FOR A CASED KISHKE
- 60 cm beef middle casing, 55–60 mm, kosher-certified if that matters to you
- 1 m butcher’s twine
Directions
Key ingredients
- In the collection: Salt and Black Pepper. Kishke is a starch-and-fat sausage, so the seasoning has to be firm — a bland kishke is the commonest complaint about it.
- Grate the vegetables fine: use the small holes of a box grater or a food processor. Big pieces of onion steam and leave holes in the slice; grated vegetables melt into the dough and carry their water into the flour, which is part of how it binds.
- Mix the dough: stir flour, matzo meal, salt, paprika and pepper together, then work in the schmaltz with your fingers until it looks like damp sand. Add the grated vegetables and knead briefly. It should hold a firm ball and feel greasy. If it crumbles, add water or stock a spoon at a time. Too wet and the log slumps and turns gummy; too dry and it slices into crumbs.
- Taste — the only chance: fry a teaspoon of dough in a small pan. It will taste flat while hot and flatter cold. Season it so it tastes slightly too salty and peppery; it mellows in the oven.
- Shape the log (route one): halve the dough, roll each half into a log about 5 cm across on parchment, roll the parchment round it and twist the ends, then wrap tightly in foil. The foil keeps the shape; the parchment keeps the foil off the fat.
- Or fill a casing (route two): soak the beef middle, tie one end, and spoon or pipe the dough in loosely — no more than three-quarters full — because the flour swells and will burst a tight casing. Tie the other end. Prick any air pockets.
- Cook: bake the wrapped logs at 175 °C / 350 °F for 60 minutes, turning once. For a cased kishke, simmer it gently for 1 hour, then roast it at 190 °C / 375 °F for 30 minutes until the casing browns. Or do it the old way: lay the kishke on top of a cholent and let it cook overnight with the pot.
- Rest, slice and brown: let it cool at least 20 minutes so the fat sets, unwrap, slice 2 cm thick, and brown the slices in a hot dry pan. The browned crust is the point.
- Decision point: if the slices are pale and pasty inside after cooling, the log was underbaked or too thick; finish the slices longer in the pan. Serve with gravy from a brisket or a pot roast. For the meat sausage of the same tradition, see Kosher Beef Salami (Cooked Deli Style).
Notes
Where this recipe came from — and what it isn’t. The ratio of roughly equal flour and matzo meal to a little over half their weight in schmaltz, with grated onion, carrot and celery, is the one that published home recipes agree on. Deviations: (1) amounts are given by weight; (2) the baked log leads, because that is how most American kishke is made now; (3) a pareve option with vegetable shortening is given because many cooks serve kishke beside dairy. I have not made it; it is untested.
Where kishke came from. Kishke is East European Jewish poverty food: a gut casing filled with whatever starch and fat the household had, cooked in or beside the cholent that sat in the oven from Friday afternoon to Saturday lunch. Joan Nathan called it an add-on to give the cholent some flavour. North African and Kurdish Jewish versions put meat or offal in; Sephardic versions added pine nuts. The Ashkenazi version that reached American delis and catering halls is meatless.
The 1958 story. A widely repeated line says beef intestine has not been legal in the US since 1958. No 1958 rule turns up. What is documented: in January 2004 FSIS made the small intestine of all cattle a specified risk material because of BSE, and on 7 September 2005 it allowed beef small intestine back into food and natural casings once the last 80 inches (the distal ileum) are removed (9 CFR 318.6(b)(8)). Beef middles — the large intestine, the casing bologna and salami use — were never banned. Joan Nathan’s more useful observation, in Jewish Cooking in America, is that intestine casings had become very hard to buy and the dish was fading. Supply, kosher certification of casings and a taste for lighter food did more to change kishke than any regulation.
The name. Kishke is Slavic for gut; derma (plural of Yiddish darm) is the Germanic word for the same thing. Kishke is also Yiddish slang for the guts in the emotional sense — a punch in the kishkes. Polish kiszka and kaszanka name the blood-and-buckwheat cousin.
Variations. Mock kishke uses crushed crackers (Tam Tam, Ritz) in place of matzo meal and flour. Some recipes add a little sugar or garlic. Helzel is the same filling sewn into a chicken-neck skin.
Sourcing and gear. Rendered chicken schmaltz keeps in the freezer; render your own from skin and fat trimmings. Beef middles come salted from sausage suppliers; check for kosher certification if needed. A loaf pan works too: pack the dough in, cover with foil and bake.
Still open. No old printed Yiddish or Polish-Jewish recipe with weights has been checked against this ratio. Where the beef-casing kishke still exists commercially in the US is not documented here.
Read more on the site. Kosher and Halal · Blood, Liver, Head and Offal