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Pluma moos, a rich, jammy side made from dried fruit, has long accompanied holiday ham and potatoes for Mennonite families in Kansas.
By Jed Portman
Reporting from Marion County, Kan.
Published March 30, 2026 Updated March 30, 2026
For years, Carol Abrahams made pluma moos for her mother, who liked it but no longer prepared the family’s holiday meals. After her mother died, she made it for her siblings and her aunt. Last year, she didn’t make it at all.
Ms. Abrahams, a retired school social worker, and many of her Mennonite neighbors in Hillsboro, Kan., talk about the Easter and Christmas side dish like it’s fruitcake — a holiday tradition that may not be anyone’s favorite anymore.
“I kept making it for family reasons,” she said, adding, “I don’t know if my daughters will ever make pluma moos.”
Moos, which rhymes with dose, generally means fruit soup in a Low German dialect spoken by Mennonites who moved from the Netherlands to Eastern Europe, then all over the world, in search of religious freedom. Across the Mennonite diaspora, moos incorporates everything from Canadian chokecherries to Paraguayan papaya. In south-central Kansas, where thousands of Mennonites settled in the late 1800s, it usually comes in just two varieties: cherry or pluma, which is also spelled “plume,” “plüme” and “plumi.”
Now, in a mostly rural and small-town Kansas community that’s treasured it for generations, it seems to be fading away. But this ingeniously simple dish deserves a place on every holiday table.
Made from long-simmered prunes and raisins, pluma moos transforms run-of-the-mill dried fruits into a lush, puddinglike soup or compote that pairs well with Easter ham and fried potatoes. It can look like cranberry sauce, but at its cream-fortified richest, it’s more like custard, with notes of dark caramel and red wine from the fruit.
Long before the Mennonite Central Committee commissioned Doris Longacre to write the “More-With-Less Cookbook,” which became a 1970s hit, ultimately selling nearly a million copies, Mennonites worldwide had established themselves as resourceful cooks.
Pluma moos is an adaptable luxury for lean times, when the only fruit in the kitchen might be coming out of a farmhouse attic or the back of the pantry. Some Kansas cooks swap the raisins for dried cranberries and supplement with dried apricots or apples. Nearly every recipe calls for cinnamon, but some families also add cloves, allspice and star anise.
There’s a more substantial divide between those who pour in milk or cream at the end and those who don’t. (In the definitive book “Mennonite Foods and Folkways From South Russia,” the culinary historian Norma Jost Voth quoted a Canadian Mennonite on cream in moos: “No! No! No!”)
Even the serving temperature depends on the circumstances. “Right after I make it, I like it hot,” Ms. Abrahams said. “After that, I like it cold. That’s kind of the way it is.”
Beyond those preferences is a thornier question — whether Kansas Mennonites still like pluma moos enough to keep it around. Cherry moos, a simply sweet, pinkish-red cousin made from fresh, frozen or canned fruit, has become far more popular, though (or perhaps because) it doesn’t have the same dark-fruit richness or complexity. Even in some Mennonite circles, pluma moos has the cultural cachet of, well, prune soup.
“Everybody still knows about it, but they know it as the bowl of gray slime at Easter dinner,” said Alec Loganbill, editor at Plainspoken Books and a millennial Mennonite from Hesston, Kan. Prunes are far from fashionable, and raisins in desserts can be an instant turnoff. Cook them into a sticky porridge, and you’re unlikely to win over skeptics, regardless of the flavor.
Or it may be that younger generations have written it off as old-fashioned, which can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. “I think I’ve had it maybe once, years and years ago,” Mr. Loganbill said. Moos isn’t going away in Kansas because of cherry moos’s relative popularity, but it would be a shame if pluma moos vanished into history. There’s nothing else in the holiday lineup with its jammy appeal.
Getting pluma moos into more modern kitchens might require minor updates, like cutting back on the sugar or chopping the fruit for a friendlier texture, to avoid the waterlogged hunks of prune that understandably unnerve Mennonite grandchildren and outsiders. But there’s nothing so dated about the idea or the flavor that Kansans — and others — couldn’t fall in love with it, making a new tradition of their own.
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From the press-in crust to the creamy tea-infused filling, this tart will be the star of every Easter celebration.
By Nicola Lamb
Published March 26, 2026 Updated March 26, 2026
There are some desserts that feel just right for Easter: elegant and impressive enough for the holiday table but with no last-minute work. This Earl Grey chocolate tart fits that role perfectly. It’s rich without feeling heavy and fragrant without being fussy, all while comfortably meeting the expected chocolate quota for Easter.
Toasted coconut brings warmth and crunch to the press-in, no-bake crust, while the filling infuses creamy milk chocolate with bright Earl Grey’s notes of black tea and bergamot. The result is a dessert with an appearance and flavor that far exceed the effort required to make it.
The crust’s nest-like look is a chic nod to Easter rather than a commercial gimmick, and it’s naturally flourless, as is the filling, so gluten-free guests can partake. And because the tart needs to be chilled ahead, it leaves you with only the joy of serving after guests arrive.
The most elegant element is the filling of tea-infused chocolate crémeux. Pronounced “kreh-muh,” it may sound fancy, but the lofty name belies its simplicity. In French, it translates to “creamy,” which, while technically correct, doesn’t tell you very much. In essence, chocolate crémeux is a step up from ganache, which combines chocolate with hot cream. Crémeux introduces it to hot custard instead. The addition of eggs and sugar brings a deeper, more complex flavor, and it sets into something silky, spoonable and lighter than a dense ganache.
In many recipes, the custard base for a chocolate crémeux is a crème anglaise of egg yolks, sugar and cream or milk carefully cooked to 179 degrees and no higher than 183 degrees. This gives a beautiful, delicate texture but comes with the risk of curdling if overheated. In this recipe, that risk is removed entirely by using a starch-thickened custard akin to pastry cream or pudding.
For the Earl Grey element, this recipe takes a faster and more effective approach to infusion. Tea is often steeped directly into dairy for desserts, but the results can be slow and inconsistent. Instead, the tea is steeped directly in boiling water, like making a strong cup of tea. It’s a much quicker extraction: Water efficiently pulls out the flavor, giving you a concentrated Earl Grey base within minutes to imbue the dairy with depth. Tea is inherently delicate while chocolate is anything but, so the aroma has to be introduced confidently. (Otherwise, it’ll be lost.)
The final flourish of grated chocolate on top is an understated but effective finish. Much like the crémeux itself, it manages to appear far more elaborate than it is: You simply run a block of chocolate against a zester. It’s so easy, you may just find yourself putting together this spectacular tart all year long.
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A riff on a riff of chicken Marbella, this crowd-pleasing, make-ahead dish is a staple of a chef’s Seders.
By Joan Nathan
Published March 26, 2026 Updated March 26, 2026
Most of the year, Tara Lazar, founder of F10 Creative, a Southern California restaurant group, cooks alongside her houseguests. At a 16-foot island, made from an ailing walnut tree trucked hundreds of miles from outside Sacramento to her home in the Old Las Palmas neighborhood of Palm Springs, they gather as she delegates tasks, like stuffing mushroom dumplings or helping prepare potato latkes.
“It relaxes me,” she said, “and it is an unexpected icebreaker.”
But not at Passover.
For her Seder, which can be as intimate as eight guests and as lively as 30, Ms. Lazar prepares her dishes before everyone arrives. The meal is too important, as it has been for generations of women in her family.
“I remember when my Jewish grandmother Rita Tannenbaum Lazar slapped my mother’s wrist if she took the top off the matzo balls in less than 20 minutes,” said Ms. Lazar, laughing. “And my great-aunt’s brisket was so dry that my cousin Gaby, who lives in Israel, covered it with a whipped zhug.”
Ms. Lazar thought that the meal needed something with more flavor, so she riffed on a chicken dish from Yotam Ottolenghi’s 2018 cookbook, “Simple.” (In the book, Mr. Ottolenghi writes that he had improvised on the chicken Marbella in Sheila Lukins and Julee Rosso’s 1982 “Silver Palate Cookbook.”)
Putting her desert stamp on the recipes, Ms. Lazar substitutes dates, originally from the Middle East and now grown locally, for the prunes.
“It makes sense where we are to use what we have in the desert, just as our ancestors had to do,” Ms. Lazar said of the dish, which is even served at Birba, a restaurant she owns with her husband, Marco Rossetti.
When the guests finally arrive, they’ll wash their hands. Someone will hide the afikomen for the children, including her two young sons, Maszlo and Maddox, to find. And, instead of lining up at the kitchen island, guests sit outside at a long table under lemon and grapefruit trees.
Date palms and the San Jacinto Mountains — “so similar to the Sinai,” said Ms. Lazar’s cousin, David Lazar, rabbi of Or Hamidbar — line the background.
“It is so awe-inspiring,” added Rabbi Lazar, who often leads the Seder. “An everyday presence, the mountains put us all in our place.”
Looking at the mountains that face the home where she’s spent most of the last 49 Seders, Ms. Lazar said, they “add peace and stability to my life.”
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A Good Appetite
It’s not kosher for Passover, but this version, from Hillary Sterling, the chef at Ci Siamo, is inspired by a Sardinian flatbread.
Melissa Clark loves a Hillel sandwich, especially on homemade matzo.
Published March 25, 2026 Updated March 25, 2026
When Hillary Sterling, the chef at Ci Siamo in New York City, created a homemade matzo recipe for her restaurant, she was not picturing those perforated squares in the cardboard box.
Her muse was pane carasau, the crackerlike Sardinian flatbread that she once devoured on a trip to the region. Airy, dimpled and singed at the edges, the paper-thin flatbread reminded her of the blistered rounds of handmade shmurah matzo she ate during her childhood in Brooklyn. Except it was better.
The main difference between pane carasau and matzo, she learned, is that the Sardinian cracker is enriched with olive oil for tenderness and salt for flavor, while traditional matzo is made from just flour and water. Her recipe isn’t kosher for Passover, but that wasn’t the goal.
“Our job is to make people realize that matzo could actually be good,” she said.
Every year, she trains her cooks on how thin to roll the dough (extremely) and how long to bake it (quickly, at high heat on a heated pizza stone), so that it comes out crunchy and well browned all over.
The training always includes a sampling of commercial boxed matzo so the team can understand the difference.
“Once they taste bad matzo,” Ms. Sterling said, “they really see the importance of what we do.”
Her recipe, which I’ve adapted here, will be published in her new cookbook, “Ammazza!” which comes out in May. It’s not a Seder cookbook — the title, Roman slang for “wow,” has nothing to do with matzo crackers — but does include a Passover chapter featuring her takes on the classics: brisket, schmaltzy kugel and her Grandma’s boozy Jell-O spiked with brandy.
One relatively radical idea she shares is to use the symbolic elements of the Seder plate as inspiration for dishes to serve throughout the meal. There’s a recipe for kumquat mostarda, which is a nod to the tradition of putting an orange on the Seder plate as an act of inclusion of L.G.B.T.Q. Jews, and another for roasted eggs with black pepper and pecorino. I was drawn to a simple harissa vinaigrette, which she pairs with roasted beets as a vegetarian stand-in for the lamb shank. In my version, I use roasted carrots, which pair beautifully with the smoky, spicy dressing.
These dishes aren’t strictly traditional or kosher, but all of them have good stories behind them. And telling those stories together, Ms. Sterling said, is why we gather at the Passover table.
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Skipping a popular technique makes the flavors in this quick braise really pop.
By Eric Kim
Eric Kim is a food columnist for The New York Times Magazine and a recipe developer and video host for NYT Cooking. A native of Atlanta, he is also the author of the cookbook “Korean American.”
Published March 23, 2026 Updated March 23, 2026
Since the food writer Molly Stevens published her cookbook “All About Braising” in 2004, she’s often wondered why it still resonates. To this day, she regularly hears from readers old and new, which is a good thing, because Ms. Stevens says she never tires of talking about braising.
In a recent email, she attributed the book’s lasting appeal to “the confidence that learning to braise can build in a cook.”
“And confidence,” she said, “is a cornerstone in any cook’s journey.”
I never considered how the way I braise now is a result of confidence, built over time, but looking back, Ms. Stevens may be right.
Nearly 17 years ago, one of my first purchases as a young bachelor in New York City was a mustard-yellow Dutch oven, a proper enameled cast-iron pot with a heavy lid. It was the era of “Julie & Julia,” and French braises — cooked low and slow with just enough liquid, as the cooking encyclopedia “Larousse Gastronomique” dictated — filled my early culinary repertoire. Staying home and nursing a pot of meat felt far more fun than going out.
Those dinners were fine, but rudderless and inconsistent. At times they’d be too bland or too salty, the liquid not reduced enough or the fat not skimmed enough, the meat tough because I hadn’t given the collagen ample time to break down. But with each mistake, I got better at it, and not enough became enough.
Now, reading “All About Braising” feels like finding the instructions for a Lego set after years of trying to wing it.
Whenever I want my house to smell like a home, I braise, specifically chicken legs in kimchi. Here, I use water as the braising liquid to let the rest of the ingredients shine.
The use of water as a braising liquid (over stock or wine, the usual suspects) is a recent development for Ms. Stevens. Doing so, she said, can result in a more straightforward result. “When braising something fatty,” she explained, “the fat that rises to the top is clearer and rises more neatly.”
As the chicken and kimchi cook and release their moisture into the braising liquid, the water becomes a flavorful stock that not only cooks the food, but also becomes steam that rises and falls back onto the food, infusing it. (In her book, Ms. Stevens delightfully calls this process “a delicious cycle of flavor give-and-take.”)
While many braises start with a sear, this one doesn’t. But trust me: Skip the sear. Or rather, don’t apologize for cutting that step, a product of French cooking that isn’t as prevalent in the braises of other cuisines.
Instead, try blanching the chicken, then shocking it in cold water, a technique used in dishes like Chinese white-cut chicken and Hainanese chicken rice. This does two things: It removes any scum or gaminess that might obstruct the clean taste of the poultry. And the temperature shift tightens the skin, leaving the chicken intact but meltingly tender inside after just a half-hour of braising.
Additionally, the kimchi’s acid tenderizes the meat and intensifies the final gravy, an electric-red pool of umami that builds across a few quick steps. First, stir-frying fine matchsticks of ginger in a pool of butter releases an aroma for the gods and echoes the kimchi’s gingery punch. Then, two generous spoonfuls of gochugaru, the Korean red-pepper powder that’s mild in heat but deep in savory sweetness, bloom in that fat, staining it neon. In the end, this gingery chile butter fuses with the chicken fat and floats atop the braising liquid
Lifting the lid releases a waft of steam, a sight that would raise any cook’s confidence.
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