If you think the matzo ball is the ultimate Jewish soup dumpling, let me quickly disabuse you of that notion. As much as I love a fluffy matzo ball, my heart truly belongs to kreplach, the meat-filled pasta known affectionately as Jewish tortellini and served during the High Holidays.

Never heard of kreplach? You are not alone. While matzo ball soup is a deli staple thousands of miles away from the five boroughs, kreplach has fallen into obscurity. You will not see chicken soup with kreplach on a menu outside of places that are deeply, intensely Jewish. And I don’t know anyone who makes kreplach at home anymore. My grandmother certainly did. My Aunt Ann has for years. But making kreplach is labor-intensive and few people have the time or patience to spend an afternoon stuffing and folding small triangles of pasta.

However, if you truly love kreplach the way I love kreplach, you will carve out time to make them. Why do I love them so much? Part of it is that they remind me of my grandmother, who was a wonderful cook. She made kreplach only for the High Holidays and we waited all year long for that transcendent bowl of soup.

Part of it is that they remind me of my father, who used to tell a truly unfunny joke about a little boy who was scared of kreplach. (Punchline: “Ah, kreplach!”) And then there was the time, years ago, that my father found himself in Ukraine on business and, at his hotel, was served a bowl of soup with triangular, meat-filled dumplings. “Are these kreplach?” he asked. “No, vareniki,” replied his host. “Yeah, right,” thought my dad. “Call them what you like. I know kreplach when I see them.”

Another part of kreplach’s appeal is their scarcity. (By the way, what’s the singular of kreplach? Kreple?) In a world where bagels and matzo balls have gone mainstream, knowing about the more obscure Jewish foods, like kreplach, makes one as an insider, a true MOT (Member of the Tribe.)

Then, of course, there is the fact that kreplach are delicious. Every culture has a meat dumpling and I have yet to meet one that I did not like. Tortellini, pirogies, manti, wontons — I love them all. I have an entire cookbook devoted to dumplings and I’m not afraid to use it. Kreplach just happens to be the meat-filled dumpling of my people.

Traditionally, kreplach are stuffed with shredded beef, sometimes leftovers from a holiday brisket. But if you are serving brisket for your main course, opening the meal with beef-filled kreplach seems unnecessarily cruel to your guests’ coronary health. So, I like to stuff my kreplach with a lighter filling of chicken thighs and livers. (I didn’t say it was a lot lighter.)

This recipe makes an enormous number of kreplach, but cooked kreplach freeze like a dream. So go ahead and make the whole batch: serve half to your holiday guests and freeze the other half for another time. Knowing that I have fifty kreplach stashed in my freezer fills me with pride. I think if they were still with us, my grandmother would approve and my father would say, “Ah kreplach!”