Jewish

The chicken and vegetables are strained out for a clear soup. If you'd like, save some chicken and vegetables to serve along with the matzo balls in the soup.

Concord-grape wine — a traditional part of the Passover feast — gives this delightful spongecake a fruity, almost floral note.

In addition to its traditional role on the Seder plate, this charoset is delicious as a condiment for duck or roast beef.

This fusion of many Sephardic recipes makes an extremely realistic “mortar.” The nuts and spices can be varied to suit individual tastes.

This recipe produces a slightly dry, chunky charoset. If you prefer a more moist version, add extra wine, a tablespoon at a time, until you achieve the desired consistency.

This slight variation on traditional Ashkenazi charoset calls for deep-frying the walnuts and coating them with sugar. The nuts stay crispier in the final product and have a pleasant, toasty flavor.

The recipe for these tender, rich cookies came from a cook who worked for my great-grandmother. They were always a family favorite. Decorate them with sanding sugar or nonpareils.

Helene Cypress of Franklin Square, New York, writes: "My grandson loves this family favorite and always asks for it. I usually end up making extra to share with other guests and neighbors."

The filling of these classic cheese blintzes gets its perfect consistency from a mix of cottage and farmer cheeses. The latter, a drier version of cottage cheese, is available at most supermarkets. A simple blueberry sauce tops off the dish. If blueberries aren't in season, frozen berries can be substituted. Use unsweetened, and do not defrost them before combining with the sugar and cornstarch.

Coarsely mashed vegetables are the main ingredients in this utterly surprising — and irresistible — kugel.

An alternative to traditional gefilte fish, this cold, oven-steamed halibut makes an elegant fish course. Conveniently, it should be prepared one day ahead.

Charoset, a traditional Passover condiment, represents the mortar used by Israelite slaves in Egypt. In this contemporary Mexican version, bananas and other fruit are puréed and cooked down to a sweet spread. "Some people say that the banana was the original 'apple' of the Garden of Eden," says Mexican-Jewish food writer Lila Louli, who collaborated with chef Roberto Santibañez on his Passover recipes. "It's also a very common ingredient in Mexican cooking."

The Ashkenazic and Sephardic traditions feature dishes with sweet-and-sour combinations such as honey and lemon. Serve this chicken with potatoes or matzo farfel, and you've got a great meal.

Everything is approximate with brisket and tzimmes, since some people can't stand prunes and others want nothing but. The amounts listed below are estimates; feel free to change them. Though Karen Stabiner calls for first-cut brisket, which is relatively lean, we prefer the more evenly marbled second cut for moister, more succulent meat.

A kugel is traditionally baked in a single large pan, but using a muffin tin is a bit more elegant—and produces an abundance of tasty browned edges. Serve the kugels as a main brunch dish or an accompaniment to pot roast or baked chicken.

Mix and match: Pair these and the gingered carrot latkes with the celery relish and the apple salsa.

To make these celery root latkes a little easier, you can shred the potatoes, onions, and celery root in a food processor with the shredding disk.