In the hit Netflix show “Somebody Feed Phil,” Phil Rosenthal, creator of “Everybody Loves Raymond,” samples food from all over the world, from Iceland to Mumbai, bringing his friends and family along. But there’s one food Rosenthal hasn’t really learned to love yet, a food of his youth: matzah. That is, until now.
In a recent Passover cooking video, the TV showrunner, host and writer tells Israeli actress and activist Noa Tishby about his early memories with the flat bread usually eaten on Passover. His late, fabulous mother Helen, whose cooking skills, Phil has hinted over the season of the show, were somewhat lacking, once tried to make matzah lasagna. “We think it came from an antisemitic cookbook,” Rosenthal jokes on screen, before saying that even the cat refused to eat it.
Tishby recruits a special guest to help Rosenthal get over his matzah-phobia — her sister, a pastry chef who helps them cook a Passover classic from Noa’s youth: matzah chocolate cake decorated with her son Ari’s favorite sprinkles.
Anyone who has ever had matzah “cake” knows that if done right, the texture of the matzah becomes melt-in-your-mouth tender and infused with the flavors of the cake (Kveller’s funfetti matzah cake was the first time I experienced that revelation.) Tishby’s sister, Michal, shows Phil how to make the sweet chocolate treat. The result? “Matzah, we’re friends again,” Phil exclaims at the end of the video, much to everyone’s delight. It’s clear Michal was scared for a moment that the rift between Phil and matzah aka “the bread of affliction” was too great for her to bridge. (As they put the recipe together, Rosenthal told Michal: “The one part I’m not sure about: The matzah.”)
The chocolate matzah cake recipe is fairly simple. Melt butter, chocolate and milk in the microwave, chill it, then layer it between layers of the Passover staple after immersing each layer of matzah in milk and a little alcohol (specifically here, Michal has chosen vodka). They then frost the whole thing in chocolate and it becomes a square chocolate cake fit for, as Phil says, “poor Shloimy’s birthday.”
As they cook, Phil talks about his childhood memories of long seders at his Orthodox family, in which he had to wait for hours as a kid without even a “shtickle of matzah” (I so love the word shtickle!). He told Noa and Michal that as an adult, Passover has become his favorite holiday because it centers around a meal, “and now that I’m a grown-up, I can make sure that meal is really good.” Rosenthal also rightfully mused that it is “so Jewish to figure out a way to dematzahfy matzah” — absolutely one of my favorite Passover activities (this year I’m really into matzah cinnamon crunch cereal!).
Then comes the moment of truth when the food-lover tastes the fruits of their labor. “It’s actually great,” he tells a triumphant Michal, “because just like you said, the matzah becomes a little chewy and it’s not cracker-y in any way, and the flavor of the chocolate is the main thing, so the matzah is just a vehicle for chocolate, so I’m happy.”
Rosenthal may not have been a big fan of his mother’s matzah lasagna, but there is one matzah-related dish of his mother’s, who passed away in 2019, that he loved so much he wants it to be the last bite he eats before he dies: Helen’s 4-star matzah ball soup! You can find the recipe for that soup in the “Somebody Feed Phil Cookbook” and hopefully some day really soon, in Max & Helen’s Diner, named after Helen’s late husband and Phil’s late father Max, opening in LA this spring.
