Friday, March 26, 2010

Matza Ball Gratin


Passover, one of my favorite holidays, is coming up, and most people start the meal with matza ball soup. Usually we eat up all the soup, but sometimes-- like the other night, when we did a pre-passover soup test run-- we had some matza balls leftover. They were particularly flavorful and I wanted to make something with them that was different and unexpected. We had been eating a lot of parmentiers lately and this was surely inspired by them.

You'll need:
4 leftover matza balls
2 cups milk
2T butter
2T flour
1c grated cheese (we used comte, which is like gruyere, but a mix of cheeses is fine too)
1/4c parmesan
1 onion
1lb ground meat
5 cloves garlic
1T cumin
1/2t cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Make a bechamel by melting the butter in a saucepan, whisking in the flour, letting it turn golden brown and then adding the milk slowly. Let it bubble til it's thick, and then whisk in the grated cheese.

In the meantime (probably while the bechamel is thickening), chop and saute the onion and add the meat, crushed garlic, and spices. Add salt and pepper and saute until meat is brown, working it into small bits as it cooks.

Pour meat into a small baking dish. Slice matza balls into 1/4 inch thick slices and place in one layer over meat. Pour bechamel over and top with parmesan. Bake until brown and bubbly, about 30 minutes.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

oh purple one:

is there any issue about passover avec halav em basar?

unsigned

purplecook said...

Well, this is not exactly a kosher dish given the milk & meat, nor is it kosher for passover given the bechamel.

Anonymous said...

You must just be a cultural jew like me ;-)

<3 Anon2

Anonymous said...

I'm having a hard time imagining leftover matza balls, but matza ball parmentier is brilliant - kosher or not.

Anonymous said...

excuse me. passover has been over for some time. where's the meat and bread?

The Star Anise said...

A lovely range of food here.

amiaconnoisseur.blogspot.com

Christine said...

The photos looks good, I bet it taste even better. Thanks for sharing. If you wont mind I'd love to guide Foodista readers to your post. Just add the foodista widget to the end of this post so it will appear in the Foodista pages and it's all set, Thanks!

Anonymous said...

it took the jews less time to leave egypt than it has for you to write another post.

signed.

Anonymous said...

now that you're back, how 'bout a little blog job?

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