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I went through a very old kosher cookbook that I have and found a recipe I thought I'd try tonight. Gluten-free and kosher for Passover (and year round).I doctored it somewhat, and came up with this. Yes, you'll be cooking on three burners and pre-heating an oven at the same time, but if you follow the sequence, it's easy.. Here's my version. It does taste like knishes. My version made 32 ball-shaped knishes that are about 1 1/2 inches to 2 inches in diameter.

  a.. Pre heat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease two baking pans or one very large cookie sheet.
  b.. Peel and cut up 8-10 potatoes and boil until cooked through. Drain well, mash, and let cool in very large bowl.
  c.. Sauté 1 1/2 pounds of ground beef (not big chunks, keeping breaking it up when stirring) in a small amount (enough to coat bottom) of olive oil (or your favorite oil) in a fry pan. Just cook through, not broiled brown. Stir to keep it from browning on the bottom of pan. Remove from stove and let cool, so you can handle it. Salt and pepper meat while cooking.
  d.. At the same time, in another pan, sauté 2 large, diced onions and 4 smushed, diced cloves of garlic in a small amount (enough to coat bottom) of olive oil (or your favorite oil).  Cook until golden brown.
  e.. Separate four large eggs. Beat the whites until stiff. Beat the yolks until well mixed.
  f.. When the onions/garlic are done, add them with some residual oil (just a little) from the pan to cooled mashed potatoes, stir in  2/3 cup potato starch, the egg yolks, and salt and pepper. (I use just enough salt for flavor and generous amounts of ground pepper.) Fold in egg whites until thoroughly blended.
  g.. Set some additional potato starch (no particular amount) in a bowl, to dust your hands or the potato mixture will stick to your hands.
  h.. Make knishes. Dust hands with potato starch. Pick up a wad of potato mixture...enough to make a ball that is larger than a walnut. Flatten alittle in your hand and poke a dent in the middle. Put some cooked ground beef in the dent and work the potato mix (may need more) to cover the meat and seal it in. Place on your greased pan. Repeat.
  i.. Bake until lightly browned. In my oven, it only took 30 minutes, but it's a convection oven. You may need to leave it in up to 45 minutes.

We ate about 5-6 each tonight per person as a light dinner. I'm freezing the rest in aluminum tins. These make delicious, generous size hors d'oerves and truly have a knish taste. Baking browns the potato, so it becomes finger food, not that you're holding mashed potatoes. It's entirely possible to omit the meat and just have a small potato knish. Or, I may try stuffing it with cooked kasha or some vegetable filling next time. 

My mother-in-law used to make something like this in muffin tins during Passover time. She'd put a spoonful of plain mashed potatoes in greased tins, then a spoonful of cottage cheese, then more potato mix to cover, and she'd bake until golden browned. Ended up with potato-cheese muffins. My kids loved them. They were a great lunchbox food for them to take to school, considering there is no bread on Passover, celiac or not, and my kids didn't like taking matzah to school.

Lin






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