Savory Matzo Brei

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Maybe you’re running out of matzo are you are getting sick of matzo and jam breakfasts, matzo cheese sandwiches for lunch and matzo ball soup for dinner. We’ll admit that the novelty of our matzo meals makes eating matzo a thousand times more fun, so if it’s not something you eat every day, perhaps you can try preparing it like this…

We made a sweet and salty matzo brei earlier in the week, but it was a little too reminiscent of french toast, which neither of us like that much, so we went to the opposite end of the spectrum for this one and we were quite pleased.

 

Mushroom Matzo Brei

(Serves 3-4)

 

3 matzo

3 eggs

1 cup veggie broth

1/4 lb crimini mushrooms

1 small onion

2 tbsp butter

1/4 tsp dried rosemary

1/2 tsp of salt

1 tsp black pepper

 

Start by mincing the onion. A’s Grandpa Jack gave us a great technique during our last visit and we are obsessed.  We forgot to take pictures of this — but will, perhaps, post on this technique all on it’s own next time we have an mincing occasion.

Whisk eggs and set aside.

Slice the mushrooms into thin slices and then again into thirds.

Melt the butter in a sautee pan and toss in the onions and the mushrooms.  Add the rosemary, salt, and a 1/2 tsp of black pepper.  Cook them until they are softened and browned.

Once the mushrooms are nicely brown, prepare one cup of veggie broth — you want the broth warm, but not hot.  Put the veggie broth in a bowl.  Break up the matzo along (the perforations)* and into small chunks and soak it in the veggie broth for about a minute.

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Pour out some, but not all of the veggie broth (about half of what hasn’t soaked in) and then toss the rest of it, matzo and broth, into the pan with the mushrooms and onions.  Combine.  Then add the egg, the final 1/2 tsp of pepper and a few more pinches of salt.

Then treat it like scrambled eggs.  Keep tossing the egg/matzo/veggie combo around until the egg is fully incorporated, fully cooked and until the matzo gets crispy and browned.

Serve hot!

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*We learned the onion trick on Easter from Grandpa Jack and we learned this joke from him during the family seder this year.  We leave you with this:

A Jewish aeronautical engineer is helping build the first airplane.  Everything was great until the end of the test flight when the plane broke into pieces.  Each wing fell off, the nose of the plane fell off, the tail fell off and it was time to go back to the drawing board.

They asked the engineer for an explanation, but he had none.  He said he had to go speak with his rabbi.

So, the engineer went to his rabbi and said “Rebe, I built a plane and it was beautiful, but when it flew it broke into perfect pieces.  What did I do wrong and how can I fix it?”  The rabbi, who was a man of few words, thought and thought and thought and thought and finally said, “perforations.”

Almost more confused, the engineer went back with his newfound knowledge, saw a plane that had been built, and he took a sharp object and began poking holes all over the plane — along the nose, the sides, the wings, the tail…  Everyone thought the engineer had gone crazy, but he said “The Rebe told me the answer was perforations and so that’s what I have done.”

The sent the plane up into the air and it flew beautifully.  The engineer was pleased, but, being an engineer, needed answers.  He returned to his rabbi and said “Rebe, why did you tell me ‘perforations’ and why did it work?”  The rebe, a man of few words, handed the man a piece of matzo…

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…and asked him to try to break it along the perforations…

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(You can try it yourself — we think you will find it hard to do).

The End.