AMALENA

I literally just made these for the first time today and they turned out *amazing*. Korean savory rugelach are the perfect marriage of Korean and Ashkenazi cooking. It’s spicy, doughy, and delicious.

Rugelach is a usually sweet Ashkenazi Jewish dessert made with rolled dough and a filling that can be as creative as you are. The most common I’ve seen are jelly, chocolate, cinnamon, and halvah. This version is not a dessert, but more of an appetizer or side.

There’s different types of dough you can use. Usually American rugelach uses a cream cheese based dough, and Israeli rugelach uses yeast based dough. I do Israeli style for one simple reason: I already make challah dough every Friday and I don’t wanna make a whole other batch of dough when I can just cut off a piece of that.

So, go ahead and make yourself some Challah dough using this recipe.

While it’s rising, you’re going to make your savory filling.

Ingredients:

1. Yellow onion
2. A lot of garlic. Like, maybe a half to a full cup. Idk, I don’t measure, I just add.
3. 1 tablespoon soy sauce
4. 1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
5. 1 tablespoon honey
6. 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
7. 1/2 tablespoon sesame oil
8. 1 tablespoon gochujang
9. chill pepper powder to taste

Other ingredients for seasoning but not to put in the paste are:

1. Kosher salt
2. MSG
3. Sesame seeds

For gochujang, you can get that at an Asian market, sometimes in the ‘international’ aisle of a supermarket, or special order it online. Pay attention to what kind you get because they range from mildly tingly to burn your face off as far as spicy levels go. My husband prefers the burn your face off, I’m like… a step and a half above mildly tingly.

Instructions:

1. Put that all in a blender and go BRRRRRRR until you get a paste.

2. While making your challah dough, get to the part that says ‘braid’, and stop. You’re not braiding. Instead, roll it out, using flour for dusting so it doesn’t stick to your roller. If you’ve got a side that ends up a little lopsided (like I have in this picture) go ahead and cut it so that it’s a nice even line.

For what I used here, I was also making a challah at the same time. So this is probably about 1/4th of the dough from the challah recipe.

3. After you’ve got your rolled out dough, spread your savory filling like this:

I was a little worried that there was too much liquid in this, but in the end it turned out alright? If I try it again, I might try straining out a bit of the liquid before spreading the paste.

I was also going to add a bunch of sliced up spring onion, but forgot so… you should try that, lol.

4. Anyway, roll it cigar style to get a nice, pretty spiral in the middle.

5. Cut into 1 inch spiral slices.

6. Spray an oven tray with olive oil (or sesame oil I suppose, either way) and arrange them so they’re not right next to each other.

7. Give it an egg wash and sprinkle with kosher salt, MSG, and sesame seeds on top.

8. Cook for 15 minutes, then flip the tray around and cook for another 15 minutes (a total of 30).

9. Let cool a little and eat! They’re great warm or cooled down.