A Shabbat meal served in under an hour
Is the heat getting to you? Prefer not to spend long hours in the kitchen on Friday but still want to serve a worthy, tasty, and indulgent meal? We have designed a menu with one premise: everything is ready within an hour. Only the dessert requires a little planning, but the final result is well worth the effort.
Refreshing tomato salad
As soon as we saw this salad, it was clear that it would fit perfectly into one of our Shabbat meals. If there is a dish that honors juicy, sweet summer tomatoes, this is it. The quality of raw materials is essential here, so supermarket tomatoes might be less suitable. Invest in quality tomatoes from a greengrocer and prepare the salad just before sitting down so it stays crunchy. It will take you 10 minutes, yes? Oh, and this time it is worth stocking up on a store-bought pastry you love to wipe up all that delicious sauce.
Pasta Aglio e Olio
A quarter of an hour, 4 ingredients, and an Italian classic packed with flavor that you simply cannot get wrong. This is a dish where it pays to invest in quality ingredients since there are so few of them; use a delicate, excellent olive oil, ten finely chopped garlic cloves (not the Chinese variety, friends), fresh chili for a kick, plenty of parsley, and good parmesan. Pay attention to one of the magic secrets of the dish: please do not forget to save a cup of the pasta cooking water. That is what makes the sauce here.
Salmon fillet baked in Dijon mustard
The only thing that requires investment here is the fish. Choose a quality cut and everything else happens by itself. Spread the salmon fillet with a mixture of Dijon mustard, crushed garlic, olive oil, and lemon juice—you can also add silan (date syrup)—and send it to the oven. The mustard creates a thin layer that protects the fish and prevents it from drying out, resulting in a juicy dish with an aromatic crust that is ready to serve within half an hour.
Homemade Lotus ice cream
This is the only part of the meal that requires a bit of time planning, but all that means is putting in 10 minutes of work in the morning, at noon, or even the night before, and letting the freezer do the rest. So yes, you saw correctly: 10 minutes of work, no ice cream machine, no fuss. Whip the cream, add condensed milk and mascarpone, fold in crushed Lotus cookies and melted Lotus spread in a marble motion, and put it in the freezer. The result is a cold, creamy, and sweet dessert that can proudly compete with store-bought ice cream. It will last in the freezer for two weeks, but who are we kidding?
Have a pleasant Shabbat!
