Gribenes or grieven (Yiddish: גריבענעס, [ˈɡrɪbənəs], "cracklings"; Hebrew: גלדי שומן) is a dish consisting of crisp chicken or goose skin cracklings with fried onions.
Alternative names | Grieven |
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Type | Snack, side dish, or garnish |
Created by | Ashkenazi Jews |
Main ingredients | Chicken or goose skin, onions |
The word gribenes is related to the German Griebe (plural Grieben) meaning "piece of fat, crackling" (from the Old High German griobo via the Middle High German griebe),[1] where Griebenschmalz is schmaltz from which the cracklings have not been removed.
A favored food in the past among Ashkenazi Jews,[1][2] gribenes appears in Jewish stories and parables, for example in the work of the Hebrew poet Chaim Nachman Bialik.[3] As with other cracklings, gribenes are a byproduct of rendering animal fat to produce cooking fat, in this case kosher schmaltz.[4][1][2]
Gribenes can be used as an ingredient in dishes like kasha varnishkes, fleishig kugel, and gehakte leber.[5]
Gribenes is often associated with the Jewish holidays Hanukkah and Rosh Hashanah.[1][2] Traditionally, gribenes were served with potato kugel or latkes during Hanukkah.[2][6] It is also associated with Passover, because large amounts of schmaltz, with its resulting byproduct gribenes, were traditionally used in Passover recipes.[1][7]
Gribenes can be eaten as a snack on rye or pumpernickel bread with salt,[8] or used in recipes such as chopped liver,[9] or all of the above.[7] It is often served as a side dish with pastrami on rye or hot dogs.[9][10]
The dish is eaten as a midnight snack,[11] or appetizer.[1][10] In Louisiana, Jews add gribenes to jambalaya in place of (treyf) shrimp.[1] It was served to children on challah bread as a treat.[2] It can also be served in a GLT, a modified version of a BLT sandwich that replaces bacon with gribenes.[12]