Knish - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

A knish or knysh is an Eastern European, and Jewish snack food made popular in America by Jewish immigrants, eaten widely by Jewish and non-Jewish peoples alike.

History

Immigrants who arrived from Ukraine sometime around 1900 brought knishes to America. Knish is a Yiddish word that was derived from the Ukrainian "knysh", meaning "a kind of bun." It is described in the Oxford Dictionary of Foreign Words and Phrases as "a baked or fried dumpling made of flaky dough with filling." The first knish bakery was founded in New York in 1910."

A knish consists of a filling covered with dough

Dough

Dough is a paste made out of any cereals or leguminous crops by mixing flour with a small amount of water and/or other liquid. This process is a precursor to making a wide variety of foodstuffs, particularly breads and bread-based items , flatbreads, noodles, pastry, and similar items)...

that is either baked

Baking

Baking is the technique of prolonged cooking of food by dry heat acting by convection, and not by radiation, normally in an oven, but also in hot ashes, or on hot stones. It is primarily used for the preparation of bread, cakes, pastries and pies, tarts, quiches, cookies and crackers. Such items...

, grilled

Grilling

Grilling is a form of cooking that involves dry heat applied to the surface of food, commonly from above or below.Grilling usually involves a significant amount of direct, radiant heat, and tends to be used for cooking meat quickly and meat that has already been cut into slices...

, or deep fried

Deep frying

Deep frying is a cooking method in which food is submerged in hot oil or fat. This is normally performed with a deep fryer or chip pan; industrially, a pressure fryer or vacuum fryer may be used....

. Knishes can be purchased from street vendors in urban areas with a large Jewish population, sometimes at a hot dog stand

Hot dog stand

A hot dog stand is a food business stand that sells hot dogs, usually from an external counter on a public thoroughfare such as a road, street, ballpark, mall, or food court....

, or from a nearby butcher shop.

In the most traditional versions, the filling is made entirely of mashed potato

Mashed potato

Mashed potato is made by mashing freshly boiled potatoes with a ricer, fork, potato masher, food mill, or whipping them with a hand beater. Dehydrated and frozen mashed potatoes are available in many places...

, ground meat, sauerkraut

Sauerkraut

Sauerkraut , directly translated from German: "sour cabbage", is finely shredded cabbage that has been fermented by various lactic acid bacteria, including Leuconostoc, Lactobacillus, and Pediococcus. It has a long shelf-life and a distinctive sour flavor, both of which result from the lactic acid...

, onions, kasha

Kasha

Kasha is a cereal commonly eaten in Eastern Europe. In English, kasha generally refers to buckwheat groats, but in Slavic countries, kasha refers to porridge in general and can be made from any cereal, especially buckwheat, wheat, barley, oats, millet, and rye...

(buckwheat groats) or cheese

Cheese

Cheese is a generic term for a diverse group of milk-based food products. Cheese is produced throughout the world in wide-ranging flavors, textures, and forms....

. Other varieties of fillings feature sweet potatoes, black beans, fruit

Fruit

In broad terms, a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.The term has different meanings dependent on context. In non-technical usage, such as food preparation, fruit normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of certain plants that are sweet and edible in the raw state,...

, broccoli

Broccoli

Broccoli is a plant in the cabbage family, whose large flower head is used as a vegetable.-General:The word broccoli, from the Italian plural of , refers to "the flowering top of a cabbage"....

, tofu

Tofu

is a food made by coagulating soy milk and then pressing the resulting curds into soft white blocks. It is part of East Asian and Southeast Asian cuisine such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, Vietnamese, and others. There are many different varieties of tofu, including fresh tofu and tofu...

or spinach

Spinach

Spinach is an edible flowering plant in the family of Amaranthaceae. It is native to central and southwestern Asia. It is an annual plant , which grows to a height of up to 30 cm. Spinach may survive over winter in temperate regions...

.

Many cultures have variations on baked, grilled, or fried dough-covered snacks similar to the knish: the Cornish pasty

Pasty

A pasty , sometimes known as a pastie or British pasty in the United States, is a filled pastry case, associated in particular with Cornwall in Great Britain. It is made by placing the uncooked filling on a flat pastry circle, and folding it to wrap the filling, crimping the edge at the side or top...

, the Scottish Bridie

Bridie

A bridie or Forfar bridie is a Scottish type of meat pastry, originally made in the town of Forfar, Scotland.- Content :A bridie is a savoury pie similar to a pasty, but the pastry is not as hard and no potato is used, making it much lighter in texture...

, the Jamaican patty

Jamaican patty

A Jamaican patty is a pastry that contains various fillings and spices baked inside a flaky shell, often tinted golden yellow with an egg yolk mixture or turmeric. It is made like a turnover but is more savory. As its name suggests, it is commonly found in Jamaica, and is also eaten in other areas...

, the Spanish and Latin American empanada

Empanada

An empanada is a stuffed bread or pastry baked or fried in many countries in Latin America, Southern Europe and parts of Southeast Asia. The name comes from the verb empanar, meaning to wrap or coat in bread. Empanada is made by folding a dough or bread patty around the stuffing...

, the Portuguese rissole

Rissole

A rissole is a small croquette, enclosed in pastry or rolled in breadcrumbs, usually baked or deep fried...

, the Italian calzone

Calzone

A calzone Italian: , "stocking" or "trouser") is a turnover that originates from Italy. It is shaped like a semicircle, made of dough folded over and filled with ingredients common to pizza....

, the South Asian samosa

Samosa

A samosa is a stuffed, deep fried,snack that is very popular in the Indian Subcontinent, Southeast Asia, Central Asia and Southwest Asia, the Arabian Peninsula, the Mediterranean, the Horn of Africa, North Africa and South Africa...

, the Polish pierogi

Pierogi

Pierogi are dumplings of unleavened dough - first boiled, then they are baked or fried usually in butter with onions - traditionally stuffed with potato filling, sauerkraut, ground meat, cheese, or fruit...

, and the Levantine fatayer

Fatayer

Fatayer is a meat pie pastry that can alternatively be stuffed with spinach , or cheese . It is part of Middle Eastern cuisine and is eaten in Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan and other countries in the region....

.

Knishes may be round, rectangular or square. They may be entirely covered in dough or some of the filling may peek out of the top. Sizes range from those that can be eaten in a single bite hors d'oeuvre to sandwich

Sandwich

A sandwich is a food item, typically consisting of two or more slices of :bread with one or more fillings between them, or one slice of bread with a topping or toppings, commonly called an open sandwich. Sandwiches are a widely popular type of lunch food, typically taken to work or school, or...

-sized.

History

See also