Caraway Rye Dinner Rolls

Winter break. Christmas week, which is not my holiday but which I observe in the way that Jewish people in America have always observed Christmas: by going to the movies and eating Chinese food, which is the Jewish Christmas tradition and which I will defend against all comers. This year the Chinese food was from the place on Long Beach Road that has been providing Jewish Christmas dinners to the Feldman family since 1987, and the lo mein was excellent and the egg rolls were adequate and Marvin ate a full plate of General Tso's chicken and seemed content, and contentment is the ceiling, contentment is the best case, contentment is what I hope for on a day when the gentile world is celebrating something that is not ours but whose decorative enthusiasm is undeniable.

Three hundred weeks. I have been writing for RecipeSpinoff for three hundred weeks, which is 2,100 days, which is a number I computed while eating an egg roll and which I find both staggering and insufficient, because three hundred weeks of writing about food and family and the Jewish kitchen is a lot of writing and also not enough, because the kitchen is inexhaustible, the stories are inexhaustible, the chain is inexhaustible, and three hundred weeks have barely scratched the surface of what I have to say about the way a woman stands at a stove and pours everything she has into a pot and calls it dinner.

New Year's Eve is Friday and I will be asleep by nine-thirty, as is my custom, because I am sixty-four years old and staying up until midnight is a form of self-punishment that I abandoned in 2005 and have not missed. I will make a brisket for New Year's Day. The brisket is the constant. The year changes. The brisket does not. The entering of 2022 will be marked, as every year is marked, with six hours at low heat and the smell of onions and the prayer that the new year will be gentler than the last, which is a prayer I have been making with increasing urgency for five years now, and which the years have answered with varying degrees of cruelty and grace, and I will make it again, because the prayer, like the brisket, does not change, and the making of it is the point.

The brisket does not need a recipe from me — it knows what it is and so do I — but the rolls that go alongside it, the ones you tear apart while the meat rests and the kitchen smells like six hours of low heat and onions, those deserve their due. Caraway rye has been on the Feldman New Year’s table longer than I can account for, longer than three hundred weeks, longer than most things I can name, and on a day when I am making something that does not change, it only makes sense to set something equally unchanging beside it. Three hundred weeks. A brisket. A basket of rolls. That is a life, or close enough.

Prep Time: 25 minutes | Cook Time: 22 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 45 minutes (includes rise time) | Servings: 12 rolls

Ingredients

1 cup warm water (105—110°F)
2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast (one standard packet)
1 tablespoon honey
1 cup dark rye flour
1 3/4 cups bread flour, plus more for kneading
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 tablespoons caraway seeds, divided
2 tablespoons neutral oil (vegetable or canola)
1 egg, beaten (for egg wash)
Flaky sea salt, for finishing

Instructions

Activate the yeast. Combine warm water, yeast, and honey in a large bowl. Stir gently and let sit for 5—8 minutes until foamy. If it does not foam, your yeast is expired; start again.
Mix the dough. Add the oil to the yeast mixture. In a separate bowl, whisk together the rye flour, bread flour, salt, and 1 1/2 tablespoons of the caraway seeds. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir until a shaggy dough forms.
Knead. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 8—10 minutes until smooth and slightly tacky but not sticky. Rye dough will be denser than all-purpose dough — this is correct. Shape into a ball.
First rise. Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a clean kitchen towel or plastic wrap, and let rise in a warm spot for 1 hour, or until roughly doubled in size.
Shape the rolls. Punch the dough down. Divide into 12 equal pieces (a kitchen scale helps here — aim for about 65g each). Roll each piece into a smooth ball and arrange in a lightly oiled 9x13-inch baking pan or on a parchment-lined sheet pan, spacing them close but not touching.
Second rise. Cover loosely and let rise for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 375°F.
Finish and bake. Brush the tops of the rolls with beaten egg. Scatter the remaining 1/2 tablespoon of caraway seeds over the tops and finish with a pinch of flaky salt. Bake for 20—22 minutes until deep golden brown and the rolls sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.
Cool and serve. Let the rolls cool in the pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a rack. Serve warm alongside brisket, or at room temperature with good butter.

Nutrition (per serving)

Caraway Rye Dinner Rolls — Something to Tear Apart While the Brisket Rests