All you need to know about Jewish cuisine

1. Fish is allowed but it is only deemed kosher if it has scales and fins so this means you can eat tuna, salmon, halibut, or mackerel.

2. Seafood such as shrimp, crab, oysters, and shellfish of any kind and lobsters don’t have scales and fins and so, they cannot be eaten.

3. If the hens or fish are kosher you can use eggs from them (think caviar or fish roe) as long as there is no trace of blood in the eggs. These can also be eaten with dairy or meat.

4. Kosher meat must have been slaughtered by a shochet (ritual slaughterer) in accordance with Jewish law and is entirely drained of blood. Before it is cooked, it is soaked in water for half an hour and sprinkled with coarse salt (which draws out the blood) and left to sit for one hour.

5. Once the salt is washed off the meat it can be sold as kosher. These days any meats labelled kosher must have been produced following these rituals.

6. Because the kosher dietary laws state no butter, milk or cream can be used in cooking dishes with the meat you will see that non-dairy cream substitutes are used in place of them. You may have heard the word schmaltz before and that is simply a rendered chicken fat.