Passover Product Watch 2009: Knaidel Mix

Perhaps you've noticed the reappearance in Passover foods in area supermarkets.

Matzoh remains forbidden on a gluten-free diet, as it is still (unleavened) wheat, but there are many Passover products that are also wheat-free, or non-gebrokts. Among those products are some real finds, which I hope to cover in the days ahead. Even though supermarkets pre-ordered Passover foods as early as last autumn, there's little harm in asking your grocer about any of the products that might interest you. Perhaps one day more food purveyors will realize that their finer gluten-free Passover products can be marketed year-round.

One Passover product that actually seems to be increasing in availability is Lieber's Knaidel Mix, which I've covered previously in this blog. Basically made with potatoes, these dumplings can be used as alternatives to matzoh balls. Need I say more?

If you're interested, ask for it!

PASSOVER TIPS

With Passover 2008 starting on the evening of April 19, I thought I'd share some tips.

As my longtime readers might remember, for a "matzoh ball" mix I'm a fan of Lieber's Knaidel Mix (right), which is made from potatoes.

Among the gluten-free products that are suitable for Passover are treats from Shabtai Gourmet, which include old-fashioned bakery sweets such as rainbow cookies. Shabtai, which markets its products at supermarkets and health food stores as well as Amazon and FreshDirect, has been reaching out for years to gluten-free people in the greater metropolitan area and beyond, including this blogger and Mike Eberhart of Gluten Free Blog. So far I've found that, with Shabtai, preferences are surprisingly varied (for instance, Mike and I both like the Meltaway Crumbs, but he and my mom seem to like the layer cakes more than I do, and I once had a very decadent almond pasty marble cakey treat that I'm having trouble identifying at this point), so I think you could do worse than sampling various Shabtai products and judging for yourself. (It's great to have choices, isn't it?)

For the DIY crowd, Gluten-Free Bay offers many Passover recipes. And Ellen Allard at I Am Gluten Free offers her own recipes including one for a matzo substitute using a mix from Breads from Anna. Here is Ellen's accompanying video.



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GF MATZO

With the help of her husband Peter, Ellen Allard of I Am Gluten Free has come up with an online video and a set of instructions for making a "quick" gluten-free matzo using a mix from Breads from Anna. (It's a dairy, Sephardic matzo, in case that's a concern.)

In her post, Ellen also offers recipes for macaroons and other traditional Passover foods. Charoset is a sweet fruit-and-nut mix that can function like a jam or a cranberry jelly. Just beware of the horseradish--it's hot and actually used at a Passover meal to draw tears of pain. I kid you not--the hottest horseradish I ever had practically made steam come out of my ears!

Come to think of it, maybe someone put horseradish in this cow's feed.



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