Sunday, February 21, 2010

Sundays with Marlena Spieler-Ashkenazi Gefilte Fish



Well..you just aren't cooking from Jewish Cooking if you don't get your cuisinart dirty at least a few times while making a recipe! I have loved every single recipe I've made from her book..so far. Well...

Gefilte Fish. It just sounds bad. Sorry. I hear that one must acquire a taste for it. I am not there yet but I know that many people love it sooo much. Gefilte means "stuffed" and back in the day this mixture was stuffed back into the fish before cooking it. My cats went crazy for it!!

I used whitefish and cod fillets

Ingredients: Serves 4

2 1/4 lbs of a mixture of fish fillets (carp, white, cod, haddock, yellow pike)
2 eggs
1/2 cup of cold water
3 tbsp med matzo meal
2 tsp sugar
fish stock to simmer balls in
4 small onions
2 carrots
1-2 pinches of ground cinnamon, salt, and freshly ground pepper.

**common to serve horseradish and beetroot along with this meal

1. Salt fish fillets on a plate and let chill for an hour. After, rinse fish in cool water and add to food processor and blend until ground,.

2. Put that fish into a bowl and add the eggs and mix...gradually add the water. Stir in the matzo meal, then the sugar and seasonings. Beat until light and fluffy...Chill for an hour.

3. Take about a tbsp of the mixture..with wet hands and roll into balls.

4. Bring a lg pot of fish stock to a boil (I bought mine) and then reduce to a simmer and add the fish balls. Simmer for about one hour. If necessary, add more water to the pot to keep balls covered.

5. Add the onions, carrots, cinnamon and a little extra sugar and simmer uncovered for 45-60 minutes.

6. Leave fish to cool slightly then remove from the pot. Serve them warm or cold with the beetroot/horseradish.

Be sure to check out my blogger buddies offerings for Sunday with Marlena Spieler at Just the Two of Us and Sacramento Spice.

4 comments:

shankari said...

It is interesting to see the addition of cinnamon and sugar to the stock. We are learning tons from this project

Shelly said...

The addition of sugar to the gefilte fish is very typical of Polish/Galitzianer food. The Litvaks, on the other hand, prefer pepper. Two Jews, three opinions :).

Carolyn Jung said...

It's the fresh horseradish that elevates this Jewish staple. Works wonders if you have a stuffed up nose, too. ;)

Unknown said...

I know Shankari!!

Shelly...I am finding out that you get 5 Jews talking about a "Jewish Menu" and you will get 200 opinions. Thanks for the info. :)

Carolyn..I didn't make the horseradish and beetroot. I should have. It was just one of those days, ya know?