They don’t call it the “bread of affliction” for nothing. In fact, there is no food that tastes as much like the box it comes in.
So when Passover ends Tuesday night, it’s likely the last thing observers will crave is more unleavened bread. But if you’re creative with those leftover crackers, the matzobilities are endless.
“The truth is, one spends all of Passover trying to find strange and interesting uses for matzo, so I like to go with what’s useful when it’s over,” says Noah Bernamoff, proprietor of Mile End Delicatessen, a hip Jewish deli with Manhattan and Brooklyn outposts. Most useful, he says, is to take all that leftover matzo and pulverize the heck out of it. Then mix it with flour and egg to make a thick batter that can be used to fry up eggplant, meat or, as Bernamoff recommends, gefilte fish.
“With the matzo batter, it always turns out great and crunchy,” he says.
If there’s one thing matzo has going for it, it would be the texture. The stuff really does crunch”It’s easy to use ground matzo in place of bread crumbs,” says Cara Eisenpress, author of the cookbook “In the Small Kitchen.” “Then add it to any pasta dish that needs more texture. It changes the game.”
Fattoush means “crumbled bread” in Arabic, and is a salad of pita chips mixed with lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, parsley and herbs. But where there are pita chips, there can also be matzo, says Eisenpress. So try adding olive oil-soaked matzo, instead of pita, to the fattoush.
If you’d rather go Italian, soak the leftover matzo in water and then add to lettuce, mozzarella cheese and white wine, creating a clever variation on the traditional panzanella. While the usual recipe calls for stale bread, matzo has the benefit of always being, well, sort of stale.
Even easier, points out Eisenpress, just pull out a few sheets whenever you need an appetizer plate. Place them alongside other crackers and breadsticks; it adds that much more variety.
Indeed, when a customer orders the chopped liver at Kutsher’s Tribeca, a “modern Jewish-American bistro,” it always comes with an assortment of breads and matzo. Owner Zach Kutsher notes that wonderful things can happen when matzo is drizzled with chocolate and sea salt. Take those salty pieces and sprinkle them over an ice cream cone, or even on chocolate cake.
Kutsher also suggests burying the matzo under a pile of cheese, sour cream and guacamole. That’s right, matzo nachos. Matzchos!
“The good thing about matzo is it lasts,” he says.
For those who just can’t stand the thought of another bite of the bread, there are still other alternatives. William Levin, a Brooklyn animator whose YouTube film “20 Things to Do With Matzah” has more than 1.5 million views, says that crumbled matzo makes a great filler for any backyard birdfeeder.
In his film, Levin also demonstrates how to use matzo as a Frisbee, guitar pick or facial exfoliating pad.
