Friday Night Dinner

[ChallaMama]

Firstly I am so enthused at this board and very greatful to have it.

I'm fully aware of the scary times going on right now and wanted to start a thread on a lighter note. Inspired by a PP on another thread who made me laugh about rollmops!

I did not grow up celebrating Shabbat but as a non religious Jewish person have come to it as a way to connect with my culture and heritage. Plus I LOVE FOOD.

So...please feel free to describe your favourite Friday Night Dinner menu and any traditions you have.

My best menu is:
All home made (taught during lockdown):

Challa
Baba Ganoush
Chicken Soup

Perfect roast chicken and gravy
Evelyn Rose's honeyed carrots
Roasted Cauliflower with Pomegranates and Tahina sauce (inspired by Ottolenghi)
Persian Rice (still a work in progress)
Green beans with flaked almonds
Apple crumble with custard.

Not home made - Yorkshire Puds. Kids love them and I know they are more Sunday roast than FND!

Traditions are: candles, kiddush and going around the table saying what you're greatful for this week. Any acts of kindness you've done or seen and everyone has to tell a joke!

It sets our weekends off to a nice cosy start.

And we are not really a Shabbat observing family but we definitely have a higher than average occurrence of getting together for Chinese food on a Friday night.

Aww, this made me miss my children at university. My son is the one who does the traditional Jewish cooking. Challah, Latkes and Matzo ball soup - he bakes these for the kids in his halls. They love it. I can't cook any of that stuff!

I am not sure if my family is unusual, but because we are middle eastern in nationality that tends to be what we cook. Probably because my Mother learned to cook when she was living in Egypt and Lebanon. We use the Arabic terms too for various foods.

Rice with sharia
Babaganoush
Shawarma with tahina sauce and pomegranate
Dolma
Shakshuka

These are the foods of home and happiness for us.

Adding some less traditional options for sure:

When home properly, I make duck fesenjan with jewelled rice, and then my DH finishes it off on challah sandwiches both late at night and the next day. We live in a Gulf country a lot of the year, so our 'mum got home from work late' Friday night dinner is chicken shawarmas picked up at the traffic lights in the car, extra fries stuffed inside (my eldest gets onion added and calls it a 'secret latke' back from the days they were told not to mention being Jewish 'outside' of the community). If my DH is on his own, he orders KFC and we video call so we can eat somewhat together when possible. For dessert we have challah blueberry pudding, or if I've travelled I bring rugelach home. None of us keep kosher, so we have a lot of options. Cheese burekas or rough knafeh sandwiches for Saturday morning breakfast are an absolute must.

We're also big fans of the show FND in our house, glad to see it's not just us!

@Asthebellcurves sounds amazing, and from your posts I suspect I have lived in the place you live :)

If so, the traffic light shawarmas are a thing of dreams. Not sure if you also get melon juice?

I found a juice place near our flat in London, where we live during the week for DH's work and there's an Egyptian guy running it and he's been making melon juice for me and chatting Egyptian history.

His brother has now rocked up and started making Falafel and Babaganoush at the back. It's amazing.

Hate London generally, prefer being in the country, but love the multiculturalism of London. Still on the hunt for a perfect shawarma though. I think it's the bread? The UK seems to do everything too Greek and not middle eastern enough? Like the houmous is just weird! We make it much thinner with more tahini...

People really eat cholent for friday night dinner?

That just seems wrong to me.

We only eat it for shabbos lunch. (or in the summer, shalosh seudos) It doesn't taste good any other time!

I wanted to start exactly this thread... basically 'What is on your Shabbat table?'.

Growing up we were not practicing but when my father could get Challah we would have a starter of egg salad (egg, mayo and raw onion) and avocado salad (avocado, mayo and lemon juice) followed by roast chicken then pears poached in wine.

I also lived in Ukraine for a bit and developed a mad passion for pickled herring with raw onion, sour cream and dill. On rye bread with margaritas on the side.

Cholent on Friday night does not make sense.

(Cholent, though. A whole new thread 😋)

i have heard shocking rumours that some people eat cholent on thursday night. Also wrong.