Challah Bread

As opposed to most of the bakery recipes I publish on this blog, these breads take quite some time to prepare. On the positive side, they are amazingly good, and every time I make them, they get eaten within a matter of hours. So, if you’d like to take up a challenge – lets bake a filled Challah.

The original idea of making such a bread is not mine. It belongs to Erez Komarovsky, a chef/baker that started as an owner of a bakery, then developed it into a network of bakeries, then added restaurants, and then sold them all in order to move to a quiet and peaceful Galilee to continue cooking (and teaching others) there.

The idea of baking a Pâte à pain roll filled with vegetables (or meat, or cheese) is, of course, far from being original. The innovation here is taking the same approach with a Challah bread. For those not familiar with the concept, let me say a couple of words about Challah: it is a kind of bread loaf, prepared for festive days according to Jewish tradition. (Saturday, for instance, is a festive day). It is a kind of very soft (and, in many cases sweet) pastry, that is very aromatic. In fact, for many Jewish families, the aroma of freshly baked Challah is intrinsically connected with the aroma of “home”. The goal Erez has defined for himself was to keep these very important qualities of Challah, but to create a filled version, where the filling would combine naturally with the dough.

Mushrooms Marinated in Balsamic Vingear

The idea for this dish was born when I was looking for a quick garnish for a main meat dish. I had some mushrooms and a bottle of balsamic vinegar. This dish is delicious and very simple to make – 5 minutes of work and 2 hours of “marinating” in the refrigerator.

Ingredients:

500 gr. fresh champignon mushrooms
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
30 ml. mustard oil
1/4 olive oil
1-2 garlic cloves
A pinch of salt

Mushrooms, Lentils and Goat Cheese Cannelloni

A light, but hearty dish with interesting texture filling and sour sauce, which emphasizes the taste of goat cheese in the filling. Crispy mushrooms on top add to the overall sensation.

Ingredients:

(Don’t be alarmed by the length of the list, it is quite simple in the end)

For the filling:
1/3 glass of green or black lentils
50 gr. butter
150 gr. champignon mushrooms
200 gr. portobello mushrooms
200 gr. forest mushrooms
2 garlic cloves
200 gr. goat feta cheese
200 gr. white goat cheese
Salt

250 g. of cannelloni

For the sauce:
20 gr. butter
1 garlic clove
1/4 glass flour
1 1/2 glasses of milk
150 gr. Greek yogurt
Salt, Pepper

For the topping:
100 gr. Shimeji mushrooms (other types can be used, but these provide a great texture when fried)
20 gr. butter
A pinch of salt
2 tbsp. of hard goat cheese (grated)

Process:

Start with preparing the filling. In a salted water, boil lentils until ready. drain the water, wash the lentils in cold water using colander and let them cool down. Cut mushrooms into cubes (approximately 1 cm * 1 cm *1 cm). Chop the garlic. Grate the cheeses on a coarse grater. Heat the butter until liquid in a frying pan, add mushrooms and fry while constantly mixing over a high heat, until the mushrooms loose volume and become “brownish” (should take 5-7 minutes). Add the garlic and fry (mixing) for 2 additional minutes. Remove from heat and move everything into a bowl.

Add the lentils and the grated cheese and mix thoroughly. Add salt if the mixture is not salty enough (has to be tasted at this point).

Now to the sauce: Heat the butter until liquid in a saucepan (with a heavy bottom). Cut a garlic clove into halves and fry it until it becomes golden. Remove the garlic and throw it away. reduce the heat to a middle position. Add the flour and fry the resulting mixture, stirring it with a whisk (to fry it evenly), until it becomes a “lump”. Adding milk gradually, while stirring.Stirring the sauce more intensively, continue to boil it until it reaches a consistency similar to sour cream. Remove from heat, add salt and pepper and then add the yogurt and mix thoroughly.

Spread two tablespoons of the sauce at the bottom of the baking dish. Stuff the cannelloni with the filling and place them inside the form. If you end up placing them in two layers, then spread a couple of tablespoons of the sauce between the layers as well. Pour the remaining sauce. Pour the remaining sauce into the form and bake for 45 minutes at 190С.

Now to the topping: in a frying pan, heat the butter until liquid and fry the mushrooms until golden/brown. Add salt. 5 minutes before the end of the baking (i.e. after 40 minutes), spread the mushrooms and the grated cheese over the baking disk containing the cannelloni. Complete the baking, cool and serve.

If you liked this recipe, check out the following related dishes:

    

Did you like this recipe? Do you think that you are going to cook it anytime soon? Have you already tried it?

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