Beyond the bagel

Britons have a reputation for their cosmopolitan culinary tastes, and rightly so. Many Indian dishes, albeit anglicised versions, have been assimilated into the national cuisine. Going for a Chinese or an Italian has long since passed from the exotic into the quotidian. Even supermarkets sell sushi. Yet Jewish cuisine, possibly the most varied in the world, has taken its time to catch on here in the UK with non-Jews. Chicken soup is seen as too simple for gastronomes, and dumplings and chopped liver are too stodgy or rich for the health-conscious. Now, though, its moment may have come.

As Jewish and Middle Eastern food writer Claudia Roden points out, Jewish cuisine has been influenced by every nook and cranny in which the Jewish diaspora has found itself. Her guide, The Book of Jewish Food, contains more than 1,000 recipes. "So many people who aren't Jewish tell me they cook all the time out of my book," she says this week, while preparing a New Year's dinner for 30. "It has everything from Italian to Indian and a huge variety of vegetable dishes."

Denise Phillips runs a Jewish cookery school in north London, and specialises in combining the kosher traditions of her 5,000-year-old religion with modern cooking techniques and trends. "Jewish cooking is the ultimate in fusion cooking," she says. "Jews have travelled all over the world fleeing persecution. What they've taken with them are their classic dishes, and they have merged them with whatever is indigenous to produce a cuisine that adheres to kosher."

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• Wholesome Beetroot and Carrot Soup
• Roast Chicken With Apricots
• Borscht - Cold Beetroot Soup
• Potato salad with herrings and apples
• Cold fried fish
• Shalet - apple pudding
• Lekach – Honey Cake

The standard dishes often thought of as Jewish food, though narrow in their interpretation, are the favourites of the Ashkenazi communities who originated in the German Rhineland and have been migrating eastwards over the past thousand years, to settle in Hungary, Poland and Russia, and spreading as far afield as the United States, South Africa and Australia. Eighty per cent of the international Jewish community is Ashkenazi. New York, more than anywhere else, is thought of as home to the salt beef sandwich.

"Ashkenazi food is what is always understood to be Jewish food here in the UK," says Roden, "whether the Jews came from Russia or Poland or France. Jewish food was a standard culture and it was basically Eastern European. The chicken soup is wonderful, as is apple strudel, cheesecake and pancakes stuffed with cream cheese. In New York these foods have become American, and they are becoming more popular here."

This enthusiasm is borne out by the success of Harry Morgan, the New York-style deli chain that is doing a storming trade in London, with restaurants in St John's Wood and the West End, a concession in Harrods and a new deli opening in Brent Cross this month.

The expansion has taken place over the past five years and is a testament to the demand for hearty and authentically Jewish fare, though the chain does not adhere to the kosher rules of how food must be killed and prepared. The musician Mark Ronson has fond memories of visits there when he was growing up, the Formula One driver Jenson Button says he kicks off every season with a bowl of Harry Morgan's chicken soup with matzo balls, and George Michael, Paul McCartney and Roman Abramovich are all regulars. Even models such as Kate Moss aren't put off by the heavy fried-fish balls and lokshen pudding, which resembles bread-and-butter pudding but with fine noodles instead of bread.

Roden is famed for her Middle Eastern and Mediterranean-influenced cooking, and says that the cuisine is popular because its use of oil for cooking and focus on vegetable dishes makes it a healthy choice. This is where Jewish cuisine can play a starring role on everyone's dinner tables. Sephardi Jews originate from the Iberian Peninsula and mostly emigrated eastwards to Turkey, the Middle East and North Africa. Roden says she is often accused of favouring Sephardi over Ashkenazi food, and that this isn't strictly true. Nonetheless there is a far greater wealth of regional variation within the Sephardi tradition. "There are just a few things common to all in Sephardi cooking," she explains. "One is hameen eggs, which are hard-boiled overnight until they are soft inside and almost creamy. These are done well by Iraqi Jews, Yemenite Jews and the Jews of Egypt."

Monday was Rosh Hashanah, or the Jewish New Year, and Roden prepared a feast combining the two traditions, which included a huge spinach omelette flavoured with fenugreek, pea risotto – the peas symbolising life and its cyclical qualities, the rice symbolising fertility – and a huge fish with its head left on, which again has a meaning, of achieving highly or doing good works. A side dish was tzimmes: sliced carrots cooked with honey, representing gold coins and prosperity for all. To finish, there was apple crumble. "Apples and honey are very significant," says Roden. "Honey is what makes life happy and sweet."

Phillips does teach traditional Rosh Hashanah dishes, such as borscht and cholla bread, but her repertoire extends much further than this and the majority of her students are not Jewish. Nor does she think the UK is poorly served in terms of kosher restaurants. "There is such a variety," she says. "From Indian to Chinese, obviously Israeli, and Persian – we're spoilt for choice." Her favourite places to eat out are the Japanese-Italian Armando, Met Su Yan, which serves Chinese and Asian fusion food, and Olive, Europe's first kosher Persian restaurant, where the menu includes aubergine salad, chicken in walnut and pomegranate sauce and rose-scented baklava.

Mitchell Tillman bought the small Harry Morgan shop in St John's Wood a decade ago and has since been aiming to extend the chain out of its comfortable location, close to north London's Jewish community. In 2004, the first shop was expanded into a larger restaurant and gained a name among foodies for its chicken soup and salt beef, which are freshly prepared to order. Tillman then decided to broaden the menu to appeal to lighter tastes, serving up salads and mezze that combined eastern European and Middle Eastern flavours. He has just returned from Las Vegas, where several large hotels are considering a slice of the Harry Morgan cheesecake.

"Even though they already have old-school delis," explains Tillman, "our food is more gourmet. The quality is far better than New York delis, and our portions are smaller. The people we have been talking to are interested in our traditional Polish touch."

Another food writer helping to promote the cause of Jewish cooking is Sylvie Jouffa. She grew up in France and was so determined to continue eating her favourite grandmother's recipes without packing on the pounds that she painstakingly adapted them. The result, The Light Jewish Cookbook, includes 120 recipes from both the Ashkenazi and Sephardi traditions, including kreplech (chicken ravioli or dumplings), latke (potato cakes) and honey cake.

Roden has observed a trend at Ashkenazi Jewish weddings and bar mitzvahs for the kosher caterers to serve more and more cous cous and rice dishes, which come from the Middle East. Anyone who isn't Jewish but wants to show their guests that they can dig a little deeper than Gordon or Jamie's latest cookbook should do the same.

Sugar, spice and all things nice: Three classic Jewish recipes

Claudia Roden's borscht

The Book of Jewish Food

If you are pressed for time and do not want to boil raw beetroot, use two jars of the borscht sold in supermarkets.

Serves 6

1kg raw beetroot
salt and pepper
juice of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons of sugar
6 peeled boiled potatoes
300ml pot of sour cream to serve

Peel and dice the beetroot. Put in a pan with 2 litres of water, and salt and pepper and simmer for 90 minutes. Let the soup cool then chill, covered, in the refrigerator. Add the lemon and sugar to taste before serving. Remove some of the beetroot pieces with a slotted spoon if they seem too much and keep them for a salad.

Bevis Marks's spiced mackerel with date and mint cous cous and harissa broth

New Jewish Cooking, by Jason Prangnell

This dish is inspired by the Moroccan Sephardi practice of stuffing oily fish with dates and rice and serving them with harissa and cous cous. This refined version uses mackerel fillets and is moistened by a spicy broth. You could also garnish it with toasted flaked almonds.

Serves 4

4 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
8 x 75g mackerel fillets
1 teaspoon harissa paste
400ml hot fish stock
sea salt and black pepper

For the date and mint cous cous:

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 shallots, finely sliced
200g cous cous
200ml hot vegetable stock
75g dates, finely chopped
2 tablespoons chopped mint

Heat the olive oil, add the shallots and fry over a low heat for two minutes. Add the cous cous, then the stock and cook for five minutes, stirring. Remove from the heat, add the dates and mint and mix well. Cover with a lid and set aside.

For the mackerel, combine the olive oil with the spices, add the fillets and coat well. Season and cook under a hot grill, skin-side up, for five to six minutes, until the skin is crisp and the flesh is just done. Meanwhile, whisk the harissa into the hot stock and season.

Serve the cous cous in bowls, topped with the mackerel and surrounded by the broth.

Denise Phillips' honey cake

New Flavours of the Jewish Table'

At Rosh Hashanah, it is traditional to eat apples and honey in as many ways as possible. This is my favourite honey cake recipe and is richly spiced. For the best flavour, make the cake at least three days before you want to eat it.

175g plain flour
75g caster sugar
teaspoon ground ginger
2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon mixed spice
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
100ml vegetable oil
225g clear honey
zest of 1 orange
3 eggs
100ml apple juice
icing sugar to garnish

Pre-heat the oven to 180C/ 350F/ Gas mark 4 and grease and line a 900g (2lb) loaf tin.

In a large bowl or food mixer, combine the flour, sugar, ginger, cinnamon, mixed spice and bicarbonate of soda. Add the oil, honey, zest, eggs and juice and beat together until smooth. Pour the cake mixture into the prepared tin. Bake for about 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake mixture comes out clean.

Leave to cool in the tin, then turn out and wrap tightly in foil. Store for two to three days before serving, to allow the flavours to mature. Cut into squares and dust with a little icing sugar.

Glasses with class: Kosher wine

The outspoken rabbi Shmuely Boteach once said that the only thing Jewish wine was good for was "to be used as an adhesive to stick the tiles on your bathroom wall". This may well be one of his less controversial pronouncements, as Jewish wine has long been criticised for its over-sweet, cidrous qualities. To be kosher, wine must be produced by Sabbath-observant Jews. Wines produced by machines are OK, and anyone can grow and pick the grapes, but once the crushing begins, the Gentiles must keep their hands off.

A glance at the wine list of the sophisticated Bevis Marks restaurant shows that kosher wine has upped its game considerably. It boasts a Sancerre La Chatellenie 2002, a Pouilly-Fumé le Tronsec J Mellot 2002 and a Chablis La Chablisienne 2004. From Israel there are several Chardonnays, a Cabernet Merlot and a Cabernet Sauvignon. Terry Durack of the 'The Independent on Sunday' enjoyed the Italian Bartenura Pinot Grigio.