Purim in one of my favorites holidays. It wasn’t always like this. One of my most memorable childhood traumas is connected to Purim. It wasn’t the costumes, I actually loved to dress up, and I loved the costumes parade. The Purim gragger was one of my favorite toys, and not just on Purim. What scared me was a conversation mom had with our neighbor. Our next door neighbor came to borrow a cup of sugar. She ran out while making hamantaschen. They went on discussing recipes, but I was horrified when I realized that mom was preparing hamantaschen (Haman's ears) for the Mishloach manot (Purim basket), which I had to bring to the kindergarten. I spent the next few days in the kitchen, anxiously following every dish mom cooked, asking endless questions, and trying to find those ears. “Why are you constantly in my way?” mom asked “I won’t be able to bake hamantaschen if you keep disturbing me.” It was too much for me, baked ears…”mom I don’t think it is a good idea to put ears in the Mishloach manot ” I said and added “ how come people eat other people's ears?” “what are you talking about?” mom asked “those ears, Haman’s ears, that you want to put in the Mishloach manot.” Mother could not stop laughing, and when she calmed down a little, she gave me a cookie from my favorite Purim’s cookies. “Do you like it?” she asked “very much, those are my favorites” I answered with full mouth. “So you like hamantaschen” mom said smiling.
Ingredients
2 ½ cups flour
1 cup sugar powder
1 ¾ sticks butter cut into cubes
2 TBS poppy seeds
1 egg + 1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 TBS orange juice
Poppy filling
5 oz freshly ground poppy seeds
2 TBS butter
¾ cup milk
¾ cup sugar
2 TBS honey
1 cup coarsely ground almonds
1 lemon zest
Place flour, sugar powder, butter and poppy seeds in a mixer bowl with butter hook. Knead until small crumbs are formed. Add while stirring egg, egg yolk, vanilla extract and orange juice and continue kneading only until dough is formed. Flatten to a rectangle, wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate for one hour.
Filling
Heat milk, butter, honey and sugar in a saucepan until sugar dissolves and bring to near boil. Add freshly ground poppy seeds and bring to boil while stirring. Cook 5 minutes in low heat. Remove from stove a let chill a little. Add ground almonds and lemon zest. Mix well and let rest until completely cool.
Heat oven to 350 f. Divide dough into two pieces. Roll out each piece to a ¼ of an inch thickness. With a cookie cutter or a cup cut out round discs of 3 ½ inch in diameter. Place a spoonful of filling in the middle of each disc. Fold sides up to make a triangle, pinching points gently to seal. Bake about 15 minutes until golden.
