Ben-Hur Dinner

For our Easter celebration, we went to Bozeman to celebrate with Tim's mom, Cindy!  YAY!!

We watched Ben-Hur and made a real solid effort at a traditional Seder meal.  

We did create a Seder plate for the picture of course!

For our meal we had Beitzah, Maror, Zeroah, Karpas, Chazeret, Charoset, Matzah, Dates and Manischewitz wine.  I will explain each item individually!

Beitzah is a hard-boiled egg.  The egg symbolizes mourning and renewal.  It is hard-boiled to represent how slavery strengthened the Jewish people. 

Cindy's trick is to add the eggs to water and then put on the stove to boil.  Once boiling, turn the heat off and cover the eggs for 24 minutes.  Then transfer the eggs to cold water, but make sure it stays cold!

Maror is a bitter herb.  We used horseradish and is a symbol of the bitterness of life in slavery. 

Zeroah (Z'roa) is a roasted lamb shank bone.  This is used to represent the ancient sacrifice and the mark made with lamb's blood on the Jewish slaves' doorposts.  We made an herb roasted lamb dish to symbolize this.

Ingredients:

4 garlic cloves

1 tablespoon of fresh thyme

1 tablespoon of fresh rosemary

2 teaspoons of kosher salt

2 tablespoons of olive oil, divided

4 lamb chops

Directions:

Mix garlic, thyme, rosemary, salt and 1 tablespoon in a large bowl. 

Add lamb and marinate for thirty minutes

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a large skillet

Add lamb until browned about three minutes per side

Transfer skillet to oven to roast lamb chops for 10 minutes

Let rest for five minutes

Karpas is a green herb,  we used parsley dipped in salt water, to represent the tears of the slaves.

Chazeret, like Maror, is used to symbolize the bitterness of life.  We are using romaine lettuce.

Charoset is a mixture of chopped apples, nuts, wine, and cinnamon.  This is used to symbolize the mortar that the Israelites used to build the pyramids and the sweetness of their freedom.  I found and adapted this recipe: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Traditional-Apple-Walnut-Charoset-234298

Ingredients:

3 Apples

1 tablespoon of brown sugar

1 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon

1 cup of walnuts

1/2 cup of Manischewitz

Directions:

Core, peel, and cube apples

Add all ingredients in a bowl and stir

Matzah/Matzo bread is unleavened bread.
Using the Matzah bread, which is more like a cracker, you can make a Hillel Sandwich.  Hillel the Rabbi created the original sandwich. (Earl of Sandwich was around much later! The more you know!)   He used Matzah bread, Charoset, Maror, and Chazeret.  It's a good way to incorporate these items into your meal and surprisingly it tastes pretty good!!!

Manischewitz wine

We bought some pitted dates to eat as dessert.  

It was a very tasty meal!   Happy Easter!