This year our Purim seudah will be a Sephardic desayuno, a dairy lunch that usually includes a variety of burekas, boyos, cheeses, cuajado (frittata), huevos haminados (overnight brown eggs), salads and dips.

There’s an old Ladino adage Neil loves to quote every year around this time. It goes “Purim por un lado, Pesah en la mano!” which means Purim on our side, Pesach in the hand. (As though I’m not stressed enough knowing that Pesach is a mere five weeks away.) 

Sure enough, every year this leads to a discussion of the Purim plans. How many mishloach manot (gifts for friends) will we be making? What will we be doing for the seudah (festive meal)?

When I saw the calendar, I was so excited to see that Purim lands on a Thursday night. My initial thought was, “Great! One less thing, we will combine the seudah and Friday night dinner. But I jumped to that conclusion too quickly. This year, the seuda will be during the day on Friday. Of course, Neil eagerly requested boyos for our dairy brunch. 

So this year our Purim seudah will be a Sephardic desayuno, a dairy lunch that usually includes a variety of burekas, boyos, cheeses, cuajado (frittata), huevos haminados (overnight brown eggs), salads and dips. 

Boyos are an old recipe passed down from generation to generation of Sephardic families who found refuge in the Turkish Ottoman lands. The pastry is made with a yeast dough that is filled with fresh spinach, feta and parmesan cheeses, then rolled into a snail shape. 

As I prepared mentally, for this not-so- easy and time-consuming baking project, I thought to myself, how can I incorporate boyos into my Purim theme? I was inspired by hamantashen and frijeldados, a delicious triangle phyllo treat. I decided to make boyo triangles because triangles represent the ears of Haman, the villain of the Purim story. 

Forming them was a bit tricky at first, but I figured it out and was very pleased. (If you’d like to learn, we ‘ll have a video on our Instagram and Facebook pages.) 

As I patiently rolled out the dough and stuffed and folded, I imagined Neil’s great- grandmother sitting in her sunny kitchen in Rhodes, with her female relatives and friends, as they patiently made hundreds of boyos. 

A long time ago, I asked Neil’s mother, Becky — if they didn’t have refrigerators in Rhodes, how did they store all these cheese pastries? She laughed at my question and answered “All over the place!”

The old ladies would keep their trays of burekas and boyos on top of and under the furniture. Apparently this storage system continued in Los Angeles, where the new immigrants didn’t always have big refrigerators. A friend once told us that his mother would put trays of boyos under her bed! 

I can’t risk having my boyos spoil, so four large Ziploc bags are safely in my freezer. I am very happy that they will be devoured by my family on Purim and that I’m keeping these old baking traditions alive. I believe Neil’s grandmother and grandfather will be smiling down on us from Heaven. 

—Rachel 

When my brother Rafi and I were younger, one of our favorite activities was pulling out the boxes of family photos from the top shelf in my parent’s closet. We would shuffle through the piles of pictures, always excited to spot photos of ourselves.

There were extremely precious black-and-white photos from Iraq. One portrait is of my father’s family when he was five years old, with all my young uncles and aunts formally dressed and wearing serious expressions. There is a stunning engagement portrait of my maternal grandparents; she is wearing navy velvet, diamonds and pearls, he has a black mustache, a floral silk tie and a light suit. There are several portraits of my grandparents and their growing family, my mother and her younger brothers dressed in their finest for professional photographers in Baghdad studios. 

I guess for me part of the fascination with the photos was piecing together my family history. I would look at the faces of my great-grandparents and try to imagine who they were, what they thought and how they lived. Maybe by looking at photos from the past, I could figure out my place in the world. 

One of my favorite photos is of my very young mother, wearing a beautiful white cape, leaning in to two little boys. One is my three-year-old brother Rafi, who is holding a gragger and looks upset. The other little boy is my mother’s six-year-old cousin Ofer, who has a drawn-on mustache and is dressed up as Achashverosh, the Persian king from the Megillah. 

Purim is a celebration of the story of Esther and Mordechai and how they helped to save the exiled Jewish people from the evil designs of Haman. It is the last major Rabbinic holiday to be added to the Jewish calendar and it is the happiest day of the year. A day of feasting, gift-giving and rejoicing. 

Every year, we are given the opportunity to celebrate the sheer miracle of the survival of the Jewish people. 

For my family, Purim was always the time to enjoy my grandmother Nana Aziza’s mach’bus—her crispy baba t’amar, her cheesy sambusak and crispy ka’ak. The freshly baked pastries in her mishloach manot were always a work of art. 

Nowadays, we are blessed to have the community Purim Bake at Kahal Joseph. This past Sunday, my mother, Rachel and I joined in to bake with lots of good friends, including the indefatigable organizer of the event Yvette Dabby and Mickey Kahtan of @mickeybakes. 

It’s always wonderful to see young and old joining to bake these special Babylonian treats; the recipes handed down from the kitchens of Baghdad, Basra and the other cities of Iraq. 

Of course, the best part is bringing the baba t’amar (crispy date cookies), cheese sambusak and hajibada (almond macaroons) home and sharing them with friends and family. These recipes can be found online in The Jewish Journal, on our website and our Instagram page. 

This week, Rachel came over and we cooked up a tomato cuajado, (pronounced qua’shado). This staple of the Sephardic kitchen is an easy, creamy, vegetable baked frittata. This crustless quiche will also be part of Rachel’s desayuno on Purim.

Together, we laid out a joyful, celebratory table with some of her boyo masterpieces, the cuajado, eggs, Israeli salad, eggplant and olives. We remembered the line from the Megillah — “The Jews had light and gladness, and joy and honor.” –Esther 8:16

How awesome is it that our place in the world is to celebrate our Jewish heritage with our friends and family!

—Sharon 

SPINACH BOYOS

Filling:

2 1/2 lbs. spinach, finely chopped

1 cup crumbled feta cheese

1/2 cup finely grated Romano or parmesan cheese

3 Tbsp flour

Combine all the ingredients.

Dough:

1 cup warm water

1 tsp yeast

1 tsp sugar

1 Tbsp vegetable or avocado oil

1 tsp salt

3-4 cups all-purpose flour

1 egg, beaten, for egg wash

Preheat oven to 400°F.

In a large bowl, combine the water, yeast and sugar and let proof for 10 minutes.

Combine the oil with the salt and add to the yeast mixture.

Using a standing mixer with a dough hook or by hand, start incorporating the flour, one cup at a time. Dough should come together and be just a bit sticky.

Pour oil into a baking sheet until it reaches halfway up the sides.

Roll the dough into golf ball-sized pieces, then place on the baking sheet and leave covered with towel for an hour.

Using a small rolling pin, roll out the dough as thinly as possible, and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.

Create a rectangle around 4 inches long by 3 inches wide, depending on whether you want the boyo triangles to be small or larger. At the bottom of the rectangle, add one tablespoon of filling.

Fold one corner to create a triangle going upwards and fold the triangle again onto itself until the entire dough is used. 

Place on a baking sheet. Repeat to make all the boyos.

Brush all with egg wash and sprinkle with grated cheese.

Place in the oven and bake until the boyos are a golden brown, about 15 minutes.

Note: Triple the recipe and freeze in tightly sealed containers.

Tomato Cuajado 

(tomato frittata) 

4 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil, divided

3 medium Roma tomatoes, diced

2 14 oz cans diced tomatoes, strained

1 tsp sugar

6 large eggs

1 tsp salt

½ tsp black pepper

4 thick slices of challah (cut into bite size pieces)

1 8oz container feta cheese

1 cup grated parmesan cheese

1 cup chopped Italian parsley

1 egg, whisked for egg wash

Preheat oven to 425°F.

In a saucepan, warm 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium heat. Add the fresh tomatoes and simmer on low heat for 15 minutes.

Add the canned tomatoes and sugar; simmer for another 15 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool.

In a large bowl, whisk the eggs. Add the challah, Parmesan, and  Feta cheeses, tomatoes and parsley.

Gently combine all the ingredients.

Grease an ovenproof dish with remaining olive oil and heat the dish in the oven for 10 minutes. Pour the egg and tomato mixture into the warm dish.

Spread the egg wash on top of the mixture.

Place cuajado on the middle rack of the oven. Bake 30-40 minutes, until cuajado is golden brown on top and firm in the center.

Notes:

Warming baking dish in the oven with a bit of oil before putting the filling in guarantees a crunchy crust.

Cuajado leftovers can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for a week.

Reheat cuajado in oven warmed 350°F. Freezes well in a well-sealed container.

Rachel Sheff and Sharon Gomperts have been friends since high school. They love cooking and sharing recipes. They have collaborated on Sephardic Educational Center projects and community cooking classes. Follow them on Instagram @sephardicspicegirls and on Facebook at Sephardic Spice SEC Food.