‘Queen of the Table’: A Grandmother’s Kurdish Shavuot Tradition

Shared by Alon Hadar
Recipe Roots: Kurdistan > Jerusalem > New York City

Celebrating the springtime holiday Shavuot is “something I can’t forget,” says journalist-turned-chef Alon Hadar. When he was little, Kurdish women in his grandmother’s Jerusalem neighborhood Givat Shaul would gather and build a fire to prepare kadeh, a flatbread filled with cheese that honors the tradition of eating dairy-laden dishes on Shavuot. The kadeh “was the queen on the table,” says Alon, served alongside a rich yogurt sauce called zizik. 

The women would lay a convex metal sphere called saj — fashioned from an old water heater — over the fire to cook on. Each woman would arrive with two large bowls: one with a cheese mixture and the other filled with dough that was unique to her home, says Alon. In turns, each woman would lay out the dough on the saj and fill it with cheese, forming a half moon shape. When it was fully cooked, it was placed in a basket and wrapped up to keep it warm.

The custom is one Alon’s grandmother Rachel and her family brought with them from Kurdistan when they moved to East Jerusalem in the late 1930s. They also brought recipes for hamusta, a bulgur dumpling soup made sour with lemon and bright with wild greens. A passion for fresh herbs and wild greens is shared across Alon’s family. His father, who emigrated from Kurdistan in 1951, would forage in the Judean hills as his family had in Kurdistan. 

When Kurdish Jews came “to Israel, they tried to rebuild the community,” explains Alon. And it’s through the community and its traditions that he came to appreciate food in general and a cuisine that’s deeply tied to terroir and seasonality. 

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In 2015, after years working as a journalist covering Israeli food and culture, Alon shifted to cooking full time at Tel Aviv’s celebrated butcher shop and restaurant M25.  He hoped to find what he calls an “international language,” for himself and believed food could be that. 

Just before COVID took hold of the world, Alon relocated to New York City with plans to open a hamara, a style of traditional Middle Eastern cafe, which he planned to operate out of his home, where guests could stop by for an evening and enjoy glasses of arak. “I wanted to bring Kurdish food to New York City,” and to the world, Alon explains. But, as COVID shut down New York, Alon knew he couldn’t open his hamara.

Serendipitously, he connected with Rafi Hasid, the owner of Brooklyn’s Miriam restaurant, who was planning to open a homestyle restaurant, a vision that was close to Alon’s. Together, the two created Homemade by Miriam in Manhattan. Here, Alon serves a riff on his grandmother’s hamusta, replacing the dumplings with meatballs or fish with leeks, and using greens he finds in the farmers’ market instead of the hills of Jerusalem. Still, he says, “it’s a full circle,” explaining that he shares the story of his grandmother through the dish. This spring for Shavuot, Alon will also share her kadeh, updated a touch with sourdough and spinach in the filling. Once again, the kadeh will be the queen — this time of a table in New York City. 

Kadeh (Kurdish Cheese + Spinach Stuffed Bread)

Photography by Armando Rafael and food styling by Judy Haubert

Makes: 20-22 stuffed breads
Total Time: 2 hours inactive + 1 hour and 30 minutes active

Ingredients

For the the dough:
6 ½ cups + 2 tablespoons white bread flour
¾ cup whole wheat flour 
2 ¾ cups cold water
¼ cup olive oil
3 ½ tablespoons sugar 
2 ½ tablespoons kosher salt
1 tablespoon active dry yeast
1 teaspoon olive oil for greasing

For filling and assembly:
1 ½ pounds fresh spinach 
1 tablespoon kosher salt
8 ounces feta cheese, crumbled
4 ounces string mozzarella, pulled apart into small pieces
4 ounces halloumi cheese, roughly chopped
White bread flour, for rolling and dusting
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons nigella seeds

Preparation

1. Add the flours, water, oil, sugar, salt, and yeast into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook attachment. Knead the ingredients at low speed for 15 minutes until a smooth dough is formed. 

2. Transfer the dough into a large bowl greased with olive oil. Cover with plastic wrap and let it rest in a warm place for 1 ½ hours or until doubled in size. Alternatively, let the dough rise in a refrigerator for 24 hours until doubled in size.

3. While the dough rises, prepare the filling: place the spinach into a large mixing bowl. Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of salt. Massage the spinach with your hands for 1-2 minutes until the spinach wilts and releases liquid. Set the spinach aside for 20 minutes. Squeeze out the excess liquid from the spinach. Add the feta, mozzarella, and halloumi cheese into the bowl with the spinach. Mix until the mixture is well combined, and set aside.

4. Transfer the dough onto a lightly oiled surface and divide it into 20-22 equal pieces. Space out the pieces of dough on an oiled sheet tray 1 inch apart, and cover with plastic wrap. Let the dough rest for 20 minutes. 

5. Preheat the oven to 475 degrees F. Place a pizza stone into the oven if you have one. Alternatively, cover the underside of a sheet pan with aluminum foil, and place the baking sheet into the oven upside down.

6. Assemble the kadeh: lightly flour a large work surface, and roll out a piece of dough into a circle with a diameter of about 6-7 inches. Place 2 heaping tablespoons of the spinach filling onto the one half of the dough, leaving a ½ inch border. Brush a bit of water along the edges of the dough. Fold the dough into a semicircle and close the seam of the semicircle, pressing down with your fingers. Seal the edges by creating a crimp-like design by pressing dimples into the edge of the semicircle with your index finger (photos below), and prick all over with a fork. Place the kadeh onto the preheated pizza stone or baking pan. Bake in the oven for 8-10 minutes or until the bread is golden and baked through. Take the kadeh out of the oven, place onto a cooling rack, and immediately brush the top of the kadeh with olive oil and sprinkle nigella seeds on top. Repeat with the remaining pieces of dough. Serve hot. 

Zizik (Yogurt and Purslane Dip)

Makes: 6-8 servings
Total time: 15 minutes

Ingredients
1 cup whole milk yogurt 
1/4 cup sour cream
3 scallions, finely chopped
1/4 cup purslane or watercress, finely chopped
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Preparation
1. Mix all the ingredients in a bowl until combined well and serve.