Egg mahmoosa, khichri and rose-flavoured jelly: Elana Benjamin’s easy Indian-Jewish recipes
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The Jewish-Australian cookbook author shares flavourful family recipes that have travelled to Bondi – via Baghdad and Bombay. When I picture my childhood in Sydney, the first image that enters my mind is Nana Hannah’s Bondi apartment, crammed with my Jewish family, the sounds of laughter, and loud conversation interspersed with Arabic and Hindustani.
![[‘I like to make it for a hearty Sunday morning breakfast and serve it with chapatis’ … egg mahmoosa.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/cb7144ae197dc0432618197273aa34ce1d5f2432/0_456_1466_1120/master/1466.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
As a young kid, I refused to eat any of Nana’s Indian-Jewish specialties, except her scrumptious aloo makalas (fried potatoes). It was only later that I developed a taste for the spice-infused fare of my community and began to appreciate its spectacular cuisine.
![[Indian-Jewish khichri is much drier than Indian khichdi, says Benjamin.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/b01edea5f8b81cd0b3b9ce3f83dd6003aeae884e/0_124_2048_1307/master/2048.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
My parents and grandparents were part of Bombay’s Baghdadi Jewish community, a group of Jews who, beginning in the 18th century, fled Iraq for the religious freedom and trading benefits of India. By incorporating Indian spices into traditional Iraqi dishes and following the Jewish dietary laws – which prohibit the mixing of meat and dairy – India’s Baghdadi Jews created a delicious cuisine that is a synthesis of Iraqi and Indian cooking. They also adopted some typical Indian-vegetarian dishes.
![[‘This water-based, rose-flavoured version is my mother’s recipe and my absolute favourite.’]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/2379ad2de83e510f00720daaa311e69198006891/59_1007_1459_942/master/1459.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
India’s Baghdadi community began to disintegrate in the early 1950s. Those who moved to Sydney’s eastern suburbs used food as a means of retaining their cultural identity. In their humble Bondi kitchens, the women cooked the familiar Indian-Jewish food of home.
![[Cover of Indian-Jewish Food: Recipes and Stories from the Backstreets of Bondi by Elana Benjamin. Published by the Sydney Jewish Museum]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/27f3be556439845ea942ea12997013e100c0d3a8/0_0_718_999/master/718.jpg?width=120&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Many of the Indian Jews who immigrated to Australia are no longer alive. Much of their distinct cuisine is prepared only in the kitchens of Sydney’s and Melbourne’s Sephardi synagogues, and in the homes of members of Australia’s small Sephardi-Mizrahi Jewish community (Jews from south-east Asia, the Middle East and north Africa.).
