If you are Jewish and keeping Passover, you know matzah is your best friend for the week. The first couple days, plain matzah with butter is pretty good, but as the third, fourth and fifth days creep up, you get pretty bored of it. I have some great recipes that will keep you away from that bread, and keep you on track with keeping Passover.
My first recipe is none-other than matzah crack! There are many different ways to make matzah crack, but my family has always made it using toffee, dark chocolate, and different types of chocolate candies.
To start, you will preheat your oven to 350 degrees. You then cover your pan with matzah, you can break pieces in order to cover the whole pan. After that, you will need a medium-size saucepan which is slightly preheated as well. Once the saucepan starts to get hot, put one stick of butter and one cup of brown sugar into the pan and mix it. Once that mixture is completely mixed (the butter will have dissolved), leave the mixture until you see it start to boil. Once your mixture begins to boil, stir it vigorously for three minutes straight.
At this point, you will begin to see the mixture come together and start to get sticky. While you are stirring your mixture in the pan, melt dark chocolate (of any kind) in the microwave, around thirty seconds. Once your brown sugar and butter mixture comes together, you have made toffee!
Pour your toffee over the matzah, evenly spread. Once your toffee is evenly spread on the matzah, take your melted dark chocolate and pour that over the toffee. Spread the dark chocolate when the little chunks begin to get shiny. Once you finish this step, you are good to put it in the oven for around 8-12 minutes until you see the chocolate bubbling in the oven. If you want to spice it up a little before the oven, you can also melt white chocolate, which you can drizzle over the dark chocolate. This is when you would also put various chocolate candies or pretzels over top.
Once you see your matzah crack bubbling in the oven, take it out and place it in the fridge for around 3 hours until the toffee and chocolate are completely hardened. Once it is completely hard, use a knife or your hands to break the large matzah pieces into smaller, more bite-size pieces. Then, enjoy!
If you are someone who likes a good sandwich or slice of pizza for lunch, don’t break Passover for it! I have a few fun lunch ideas that will satisfy your cravings. Personally, I treat matzah as a substitute for bread.
Yes, matzah is pretty bland, but when you dress it up with your sandwich essentials, it tastes just like the bread on a sandwich. For example, experiment with cold cuts or tuna salad! You can put any of these things on matzah, with lettuce and tomato, and it tastes amazing! If you like avocado toast, make it on matzah! All you are changing in your avocado toast recipe is the bread, just replace it with matzah.
For dinner, my personal favorite is matzah pizza. You can and will never go wrong with it. Instead of using dough to make homemade pizza, swap it out for matzah. Again, to start, preheat your oven to around 350 degrees. Once your oven is preheated, start to build your pizza! This is such a good idea, especially if you have a lot of family members because you can personalize each “slice” to your liking. Start to build your pizza using your favorite sauce. I grew up on Ragu, so I would use that. After your sauce has evenly coated the matzah, sprinkle cheese over top, maybe some mozzarella, ricotta, whatever you like! Then, place it in the oven for around 8-10 minutes until your cheese is completely melted and viola! You have made yourself matzah pizza! Finish off your pizza by adding garnish, I personally love basil.
Experimenting with matzah is so much fun! Don’t break your Passover because you are bored with matzah, there are so many ways to spice it up!