Sephardic Jewish cuisine

Couscous with vegetables and chickpeas

Sephardi Jews are the Jews of Spain, who were expelled or forced to convert to Christianity in 1492. Many of those expelled settled in North-African Berber and Arabic-speaking countries, such as Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Libya, becoming the North African Sephardim. Those who settled in Greece, Turkey, the Balkans, Syria, the Lebanon and the Holy Land became the Eastern Sephardim.

The Western Sephardim, also known more ambiguously as the Spanish and Portuguese Jews, left Spain and Portugal as New Christians in a steady stream over the next few centuries, and converted back to Judaism once in Holland, England, etc.

While the pre-existing Jews of the countries in which they settled (in the Greater Middle East, for example, are called Mizrahim) are distinct, the term Sephardi as used in "Sephardi cuisine" would refer only to the culinary traditions of those Jews with ancestral origins to the Jews of Spain and Portugal.

Moroccan-style pickled lemons

Both the Jews of the Iberian Peninsula and the pre-existing Jews of Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Bulgaria, Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Italy, and Greece into whose communities they settled adapted local dishes to the constraints of the kosher kitchen.

Since the establishment of a Jewish state and the convergence of Jews from all the globe in Israel, these local cuisines, with all their differences, have come to represent the collection of culinary traditions broadly known as Sephardi cuisine.

Some of the Jews who fled from the Inquisition with other Sephardim in the 15th century settled in Recife, Brazil, where their cuisine was influenced by new local ingredients like molasses, rum, sugar, vanilla, chocolate, bell peppers, corn, tomatoes, kidney beans, string beans and turkey.

In 1654, 23 Sephardic Jews arrived in New Amsterdam (present-day New York) bringing this cuisine with them to the early colonial United States. Early American Jewish cuisine was heavily influenced by this branch of Sephardic cuisine.

Many of the recipes were bound up in observance of traditional holidays and remained true to their origins. These included dishes such as stew and fish fried in olive oil, beef and bean stews, almond puddings, and egg custards. The first kosher cookbook in America was the Jewish Cookery Book by Esther Levy which was published in 1871 in Philadelphia and includes many of the traditional recipes.[3]

Rice-stuffed peppers

Sephardi cuisine emphasizes salads, stuffed vegetables and vine leaves, olive oil, lentils, fresh and dried fruits, herbs and nuts, and chickpeas. Meat dishes often make use of lamb or ground beef.

Fresh lemon juice is added to many soups and sauces. Many meat and rice dishes incorporate dried fruits such as apricots, prunes and raisins. Pine nuts are used as a garnish.

Desserts and beverages

Date-filled ma'amoul

Tiny cups of Turkish coffee, sometimes spiced with cardamom, are often served at the end of a festive meal, accompanied by small portions of baklava or other pastries dipped in syrup or honey. Hot sahlab, a liquidy cornstarch pudding originally flavored with orchid powder (today invariably replaced by artificial flavorings), is served in cups as a winter drink, garnished with cinnamon, nuts, coconut and raisins. Arak is the preferred alcoholic beverage. Rose water is a common ingredient in cakes and desserts. Malabi, a cold cornstarch pudding, is sprinkled with rose water and red syrup.

Haminados eggs in hamin stew

• Almadrote—an oil, garlic and cheese sauce served with eggplant casserole
• Baba ghanoush—mashed cooked eggplant, olive oil, lemon juice, various seasonings, and sometimes tahini
• Baklava—a layered dessert made of filo pastry, filled with chopped nuts, and sweetened with syrup or honey
• Börekitas—small borekas with eggplant, spinach and cheese[11]
• Couscous—small steamed balls of crushed durum wheat semolina traditionally served with stew spooned on top
• Falafel—a deep-fried ball or patty-shaped fritter made from ground chickpeas, fava beans, or both
• Fazuelos—fried dough formed into a spiral shape
• Ful—a stew of cooked fava beans served with vegetable oil, cumin, and optionally with chopped parsley, garlic, onion, lemon juice, chili pepper and other vegetable, herb and spice ingredients
• Haminados—hard-boiled eggs braised over many hours, turning brown in the course of all-night cooking
• Halvah—a sweet sesame-based confection
• Holishkes—blanched cabbage leaves wrapped in a around minced meat and simmered in tomato sauce
• Hummus—a Middle-Eastern dip, spread, or savory dish made from cooked, mashed chickpeas blended with tahini, lemon juice, and garlic
• Kibbeh—dishes usually made by pounding bulgur wheat together with meat into a fine paste and forming it into balls with toasted pine nuts and spices
• Kubbana—a traditional Yemenite Jewish bread similar to monkey bread
• Lahoh—a spongy, pancake-like bread that originated from Yemen
• Ma'amoul—shortbread pastries filled with dates or nuts
• Malabi—a milk pudding whose basic ingredients are rice, sugar, rice flour and milk
• Matbucha—cooked tomatoes and roasted bell peppers seasoned with garlic and chili pepper
• Moroccan cigars—ground beef wrapped in dough
• Moussaka—an eggplant- and/or potato-based dish, often including ground meat
• Pastel di carne con masa fina[12]
• Pescado frito—a traditional Shabbat fish dish (usually cod) for 16th-century Andalusian Jews of Spain and Portugal
• Sabich—a sandwich of pita or laffa bread stuffed with fried eggplant, hard-boiled eggs, salat katzutz, parsley, amba and tahini
• Sahlab—a hot milk-based winter drink with a pudding-like consistency, possibly containing powder from near-extinct orchids, sometimes garnished with nuts and cinnamon
• Shakshuka—eggs poached in a sauce of tomatoes, olive oil, peppers, onion and garlic, commonly spiced with cumin, paprika, cayenne pepper, and nutmeg

Shakshouka in a cast-iron pan

• Skhug—a hot sauce originating in Yemen
• Sofrito—a meat (lamb, beef, chicken) stew sautéed with potatoes, garlic, turmeric, and cardamom
• Tabbouleh—vegetarian salad made mostly of finely chopped parsley, with tomatoes, mint, onion, bulgur, and seasoned with olive oil, lemon juice, salt and sweet pepper
• Tagine—a slow-cooked savory stew, typically made with sliced meat, poultry or fish together with vegetables or fruit
• Tunisian mulukhiyah—a thick beef stew
• Yaprah—stuffed grape leaves[13]

• Jewish cuisine
• Cuisine of the Ashkenazi Jews
• Cuisine of the Mizrahi Jews
• Spanish cuisine
• Portuguese cuisine

• Cooper, John, Eat and Be Satisfied: A Social History of Jewish Food, Jason Aronson Inc., New Jersey, 1993, ISBN 0-87668-316-2
• Gitlitz, David M. and Davidson, Dr. Linda Kay, A Drizzle of Honey : The Lives and Recipes of Spain's Secret Jews, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1999, ISBN 0-312-19860-4
• Goldstein, Joyce and Da Costa, Beatriz, Sephardic Flavors: Jewish Cooking of the Mediterranean, Chronicle Books, 2000, ISBN 0-8118-2662-7
• Marks, Gil, Encyclopedia of Jewish Food, John Wiley & Sons Ltd., Hoboken NJ, 2010, ISBN 0-470-39130-8
• Miner, Vivianne Alchech, and Krinn, Linda, From My Grandmother’s Kitchen: A Sephardic Cookbook, Gainesville, FL, Triad Publishing Company, 1984, ISBN 0-937404-23-3
• Roden, Claudia, The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand to New York, Knopf, New York, 2003, ISBN 0-394-53258-9
• Sternberg, Robert, The Sephardic Kitchen: The Healthful Food and Rich Culture of the Mediterranean Jews, Harper Collins, 1996, ISBN 0-06-017691-1
• Jawhara Piñer, Hélène, Sephardi: Cooking the History. Recipes of the Jews of Spain and the Diaspora from the 13th Century to Today, Cherry Orchard Books, Boston, 2021, ISBN 978-1-64469-531-9