SCHENECTADY — Consider the knish.

Sure, you know how to pronounce it, but here’s the real question: do you know how to make them?

Sunday afternoon at the Congregation Gates of Heaven, about 15 people gathered in the cavernous kitchen surrounded by frying pans of sizzling onions, metal bowls brimming with creamed potatoes and the key ingredient, a flaky, handmade dough rolled out to just the right width to house the potato filling.

Fortified with about 100 pounds of potatoes and 30 pounds of onions, the cooks were constructing 800 of the bite-sized appetizers in preparation for the congregation’s 5th annual Jewish Food Festival Sunday, March 30, from noon to 3 p.m. The knishes will be in good company at the food fest, which will also feature delectibles such as matzo ball soup, salmon mousse, chopped liver, pastrami, challah bread, falafel, hot dogs and sauerkraut. For one admission price, you can sample your way through some of the finest Jewish foods in the area at the festival, which is the major fundraiser for the temple. It’s also a way for the congregation to open the temple doors and welcome visitors.

“We want people to immerse themselves in another culture,” said organizer Jordan Lohre. “We all love the Greek and Polish food festivals, and they give us a chance to see other places of worship.”

Sunday, it was all about knishes, and Lohre was generously sharing his mother Rhoda Lohre’s traditional recipe. The ingredients seemed simple for the filling: mashed potatoes, chopped onions, old, salt and pepper. “Use lots of pepper,” was one of the notations on the recipe sheet.

“The dough needs to be good, the potatoes need to be consistent, and you can’t burn a single onion because it will throw off the whole taste,” said Randie Salmon, one of the chefs running the assembly line.

Once the onions were browned in margarine, they were whisked into the mashed potatoes, which were then laid in a thin roll on a slab of dough. Next came the tricky folding process as the filling was enveloped in dough. After being cut into individual pieces, the tidbits were brushed with an egg wash and popped in the oven to brown. They’ll be frozen until the food festival, then re-heated to toasty perfection.

Standing in front of a long counter sprinkled with flour, Stephanie Bronsther, 14, was slowly but surely mastering the art of knish-making.

“The biggest problem is when the potato squeezes out when I roll them,” said Bronsther. “You have to keep your fingers floured, too, or the dough sticks to everything.”

Bronsther, who hadn’t sampled any of the freshly baked knishes Sunday, said she has eaten about eight or ten in one sitting.

“You never get tired of eating them,” said Bronsther.

If you’ve always wondered the difference between a knish and a pierogi, the pierogi is typically fried or boiled, not baked, resulting in a dumpling texture rather than a pastry shell. But the kitchen full of cooks Sunday was clearly partial to the knish.

“They’re one of our specialties for the festival,” said Sue Kimball, co-chair of the event with Lohre. “My son is also making candy dreidels dipped in white chocolate with Hershey’s Kisses on the top. Something tells me those will be really popular this year, too.”

The Jewish Food Festival at the temple, 852 Ashmore Avenue, Schenectady, is made possible through donations from Price Chopper, Gershon’s Deli, Glen Sanders Mansion, The Omelet King, and sponsors FotoMatic and Hill & Markes. Tickets on March 30 are $15 for adults and $9, children, There are also group tickets available for families of three to five members. For information, call 374-8173.