Meat Blintzes and Sweet and Sour Coleslaw

I made this a while ago and just now found the pictures. I guess I was in the mood for spending an entire day cooking, so I made blintzes and they were really yummy. This is another recipe from The Art of Jewish Cooking–it just has such great recipes for cold weather, and hooo boy is it cold outside! The coleslaw is my own concoction.

Blintz wrappers:

3 eggs
1 c. milk or water
1/2 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. salad oil
3/4 c. sifted flour
butter or oil for frying

Beat the eggs, milk, salt, and salad oil together. Stir in the flour until the lumps are gone. Heat a little oil or butter in a 6-inch skillet. Pour 2-3 Tbsp. batter in, tilting pan to coat the bottom–just use enough to make a very thin crepe. Let the bottom brown and turn out into a paper towel, brown side up. This should make about 20 pancakes.

Filling:

1 lb. ground meat, cooked
1/2 onion, grated finely
1 egg
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
2 Tbsp. minced parsley

Mix all ingredients together and season to taste. I think I added a touch of Worchestershire sauce. Place 1 Tbsp. filling on the brown side of a pancake and roll up like an egg roll (the pale side will be out) and carefully place in a baking dish (butter the dish if you’re going to bake the blintzes–see below).

Now you’ve got a choice: you can fry the blintzes for extra yumminess, or you can bake them for ease and slightly less butter in your diet. If you bake them, place the dish in a 425 oven and bake until lightly browned (only about 10 minutes). Otherwise, fry them in oil, taking care not to unwrap them.

I chose to brown them in the interest of time, but I can attest that they would have been tastier if I’d fried them. The original cookbook has a bunch of other filling options, and I’ll try some more at some point. This dish is a lot of work but it’s worth it. I served the blintzes with plain yogurt, mashed potatoes and coleslaw.

Sweet and Sour Coleslaw:

1/2 green cabbage, finely shredded
1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
1 red pepper, thinly sliced
1 carrot, julienned
1 tsp. celery seeds
1/4 c. rice vinegar
3 Tbsp. oil
1 tsp. pomegranate molasses or sugar
1 tsp. salt
a few cranks of black pepper

Toss and let sit for a few minutes. The pomegranate molasses really makes this one, and you can get it at Holy Land. In general it’s great for adding sweet tanginess to salads. I used grapeseed oil, which is my favorite oil–it is both good in salads, and can be heated up to insane temperatures for frying.