The Cornish Pasty

East European Jewish pasties

The knish

A knish is an Eastern European snack food popular in Jewish communities. A knish consists of a filling covered with dough that is either baked or fried. Knishes can be purchased from street vendors in urban areas with a large Jewish population, sometimes on a hot dog stand.

In the most traditional versions, the filling is made entirely of mashed potato, ground meat, sauerkraut, onions, kasha (buckwheat groats) or cheese. More modern varieties of fillings feature sweet potatoes, black beans, fruit, broccoli, tofu or spinach.

Many a culture has its own variation on baked or fried dough-covered snacks: the Jamaican patty, the Spanish and Latin American empanada or Papa rellena and the South Asian samosa.

Knishes may be round or square/rectangular. They may be entirely covered in dough or some of the filling may peek out of the top. Sizes range from those that can be eaten in a single bite hors d'oeuvre to sandwich-sized knishes that can serve as an entire meal.

From: http://www.jewishrecipes.org/jewish-foods/knish.html

Jewish Recipes --> Jewish and Israeli Foods --> What is Knish?

Knish is an eastern-European Jewish or Yiddish snack food. It is a dumpling covered with a dough shell that is either baked or fried. In the most traditional version, the dumpling is made entirely of mashed potato. Also see: Knish Recipes Another version has the dumpling made of a combination of mashed potato and ground beef. It is similar to the Slavic pierogi, the Spanish and Latin American empanada, and the South Asian samosa. Unlike normal dumplings, which tend to be round in shape, knishes are flatter. The commercial versions are similar in shape to frozen fried fish fillet patties. The eastern-European versions are hors d'oeuvre sized while the New York City versions are the size of hamburgers.

Acknowledgement: This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Bagels.