Today part of my family got together for what has become one of our yearly rituals, making kreplach. For those of you who may not know, kreplach is like won ton or ravioli. The way we make it takes more than one day and it is a group effort.

First I shopped for the brisket. Then my brother-in-law cooked the brisket at his house because he has a meat grinder. He grinds up the brisket with kasha. We use the meat and kasha mixture as a filling for the kreplach.

My husband makes the dough for the pasta that is wrapped around the filling. He uses a hand operated pasta machine which I gave him as a birthday present many years ago. He does not make fresh pasta anymore but for this once a year kreplach tradition. We usually make keplach before Rosh Hashanah(Jewish New Year). We make a pretty large amount.

We get an assembly line going on our kitchen table. My husband on the pasta machine, cranking out a long flat pasta sheet. My brother in law cutting out circle shapes from the flat pasta. Me, my son and daughter-in-law, complete the last steps by placing a spoon full of filling in the center of the pasta circle.Then folding the pasta over the filling and crimping the edges a bit and bringing the opposite corners together. You’ll have to look at the picture because it is hard to describe.

The kreplach are then cooked in boiling water. After they are cool I put them in separate plastic bags, a dozen to a bag. We sometimes like to sample our work. Today we made about 120. I divided up the bags between us. We freeze the kreplach and it can be used later as an addition to soup or can be baked or fried and eaten alone as the main course or appetizer.

It’s fun making the kreplach together but a lot of work.  You can see some of process in the photos I took.

Mike makes the dough

Jennie making kreplach

Kreplach before cooking