Not your Mama's Matzah

Josephus’s Homemade Matzah

Original post 4/15/2013

Works of Flavius Josephus

Makes Two-Three round Matzah’s

Josephus Flavius was a famous Jewish historian of the first century at the time of the Second Temple destruction. If Josephus had come across this Matzah recipe, he would have included it in his writings.....WHY? BECAUSE IT'S THAT GOOD!!!

In-Addition to the ingredients listed above have some cheesecloth standing by, Olive oil, and some salt. Also as an option, you can use Non-Gluten flour, which I often use for my friends. 

How to Roast Garlic at the bottom of the page.

Optional- Use Schmaltz and Gribenes. Saute your onions in Schmaltz and add your Gribenes at the end. Instead of using Olive oil in the recipe, use Schmaltz for everything.

Preheat your oven to 500 degrees. If you have a pizza stone, use it.  Alternatively, use some unglazed ceramic tiles. Use a cookie tray if you do not have any of the above. 

Sauté the onions in some butter, olive oil, or Schmaltz on a tiny flame until the onions are caramelized. Ten pounds of onions will take a very long time to caramelize. The onions should be very dark in color but not burnt. When you initially toss in the onions, add some Kosher Salt to help draw out the moisture. As an option, you could add just a tiny bit of sugar to help with the caramelization. 

When you get done sautéing the onions place in cheesecloth over the bowl. After they have cooled a bit (wear gloves), squeeze out excess fat. 

Note: I make the onions the day before. After I squeeze out all the excess fat, I place them in a sieve weighed down with something substantial and refrigerate until the next day. The weight will help extract excess fat.

To your beaten eggs, add the pepper, salt,  Honey, Olive Oil (or Schmaltz), water, caramelized onions, and roasted garlic. Note: if you have time, set out the onions and garlic for a few hours. Make sure everything is fully incorporated before adding any flour. 

To the egg mixture, start adding the flour…..  You may need more or less flour depending on the humidity of your kitchen.

Knead your dough for about 8-15 minutes until it springs back when you shove your thumb into it.  Note: if using non-gluten flour, it will not spring back all that much. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and let rest for about 15 minutes.  Resting the dough will relax the gluten and make it easier to roll out.

If you made a massive batch like I do, you will need to scale the dough. Weigh the dough and divide by desired weight. My dough weighed 6650 grams, so I divided it by 175 grams, which yielded 38 Matzahs. 

Using a rolling pin, roll out your dough to your desired shape and size.  Take a fork and pierce the dough, making sure to go all the way through. Piercing the dough in this fashion will prevent it from rising and puffing in the oven.

Make sure you cover the whole Matzah full of holes. Using a pastry brush, lightly brush dough on one side with olive oil and sprinkle with just a little bit of kosher salt and transfer using a Pizza Peel.

I pierced and prepared the 

Dough on a Pizza Peel for a smooth transfer. If you plan to use a cookie sheet, make sure to use parchment paper. If using a pizza stone, you will need to cook it for about 4-8 minutes, and if you're not using a stone, it might require longer cooking time. Mine baked for 5 minutes and 15 secs.               

Additional Photographs 

Gribenes added to the sauteed onion mixture. 

Onions and Gribenes added to all ingredients except flour. 

Flour added slowly to create the dough.

Starting the kneading process.

Almost done the kneading. 

Done and resting.

Starting to scale.

The dough weighed 3000 grams, and I scaled it down to 15 x 200 gram balls. 

Making the holes.

Oven lined with titles for baking at 500 degrees. 

Ten Large Onions.

This saute pan is a 23 Qt pan.

Roasting Garlic Instructions

Heat the oven to 350°F: Set a rack in the middle position.

Peel (most of) the paper off the garlic: Use your fingers to peel away all the loose, papery, outer layers around the head of garlic. Leave the head itself intact with all the cloves connected.

Trim the top off the head of garlic: Trim about 1/4 inch off the top of the garlic's head to expose the tops of the garlic cloves. 

Drizzle with olive oil: Drizzle 1 to 2 teaspoons of olive oil over the garlic's exposed surface, letting the oil sink down into the cloves. Sprinkle on some salt and pepper.

Wrap in foil and bake: Wrap the garlic in aluminum foil and roast in the oven for 50-60 minutes.