Matzo

When Passover comes around, chef Julian Medina of NYC's Toloache swaps out regular toast for matzo, in keeping with Jewish dietary laws. He tops the matzo with spicy smashed avocado and simple fried eggs, making for a quick and delicious breakfast or lunch.

Chef Julian Medina of NYC's Toloache serves a special menu at Passover that includes his tender, delicious matzo tortillas. He fills the tortillas with luscious braised brisket, flavored with smoky chipotle and tomato.

In place of bread crumbs--which, like all leavened products, are forbidden at Passover--Russ Pillar coats the mild fish with well-seasoned matzo meal.

Adam Perry Lang first roasts short ribs, then braises them in beef stock with porcini mushrooms, until the meat is fall-apart tender. He finishes the cholent by stirring matzo farfel (crushed matzo) into the pan juices until it plumps up. Fresh baby spinach and crunchy sea salt complete the dish.

Cookbook author Marcy Goldman started baking matzo with her young sons after touring a temporary factory at a local synagogue that produced shmura matzo--the traditional, handmade variety. "As a baker and a Jewish mother, I thought, I can do that," she says. The whole-grain flours in this recipe create a more crackly, sandy texture than white-flour matzo.

Instead of sprinkling his soup with the customary bits of chopped fresh dill, Adam Perry Lang makes a vibrant horseradish and dill pistou (typically a condiment of fresh basil, garlic and olive oil). A swirl of the flavorful pistou brightens up the soup enormously.

This fast, genius dessert uses store-bought matzo as the instant base for homemade toffee.

At Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Pocantico Hills, New York, chef Dan Barber prepares this soup with seasonal chicken (raised in late spring, summer and fall), using wings, backs, necks and feet. His recipe yields almost eight quarts of broth, so there's plenty to freeze. He likes serving the soup with fluffy matzo balls laced with rosemary.