Potato Knishes

Once the knish was the king of the Lower East Side. A filling dish of ancient origin among poor Ukrainian Jews, the knish arrived on the Lower East Side with the influx of immigrants in the late 1800s. A knish offers affordable and soul-warming sustenance in the form of mashed potatoes and onions garbed in a golden dough. Great wars were fought over the knish—or at least, modest skirmishes across Rivington Street—by opposing knish-mongers. Like the bagel—and the Jewry of the Lower East Side—eventually the knish went mainstream. Also like the bagel, many versions abounded. The street cart knish is large and leaden. The stadium knish is larger still. Our version returns the knish to its more natural proportions. These aren’t gut-busting bricks of carbs, but rather ethereal—Ok, semi-ethereal—handheld dumplings filled with an airy onion-potato mixture.