The article tells about the traditional dish of Jewish cuisine - stuffed fish (gefilte fish) and provides one of the ways to prepare it
Gefilte fish - stuffed fish, a festive dish of Ashkenazi Jews. It is usually prepared for Rosh Hashanah ("Jewish New Year"), Passover, and often on Shabbat (on Saturdays) and on other holidays.
There are several versions of the origin of gefilte fish: one of them cites a banal need as the reason for the appearance of stuffed fish and minced meat dishes in the Ashkenazi diet. Not all Jews were Rothschilds, and everyone observed the Sabbath. It was very problematic for poor families and large families to allow themselves to serve meat or fish “in its pure form” every Saturday, and traditions demanded a festive meal. And then the Jewish women found an original way out of the situation: cooking, as it were, a whole fish filled with minced meat with the addition of cheap products (vegetables, matzo flour, etc.). Thus, it became possible to significantly increase the volume and nutritional value of each portion, "stretch" one fish for the whole family and at the same time keep the Sabbath with dignity. In a similar way, according to this version, stuffed chicken or goose neck, cutlets, meatballs, stuffed peppers and other similar dishes appeared.
According to another version, stuffed fish turned out to be the “right” dish on Saturday, because when eating it, there was no need to choose bones from it, which is prohibited on Shabbat.
To say that it is easy to cook gefilte fish is definitely impossible. Nevertheless, the only difficulty of the dish lies in the very delicate cleaning of the fish from the scales and skinning from the whole carcass without damage, but after all, the Jews never came easily! But this meditative lesson will allow you to reflect on the transience of life in the process. But seriously, stuffed fish is very tasty and looks impressive when served, which more than compensates for the effort and time spent on its preparation.
Not every fish is suitable for gefilte fish. First of all, the fish must be kosher, that is, have fins and scales, and here the Creator treated the chosen people not to say humanely: the easiest way to remove the skin from the fish is just not kosher - catfish. And minced meat from it is considered among the cooks and housewives who have joined them as the best for fish cakes, for example. But alas … The second condition is that the size of the fish should be rather large, the shape should be closer to oval, and the carcass should be fleshy: imagine stuffed crucian carp or flounder? That's the same. The third and very important factor from a practical point of view (here I will repeat a little): the fish skin should be strong enough and well removed. Carp and pike are best suited for all these characteristics. I read somewhere that salmon are stuffed, but in real life I have not met this.
I must say that modern housewives have often begun to allow themselves to reduce the complexity of cooking fish: they make a "lazy" gefilte fish. To do this, it, raw and not gutted, after cleaning from the scales, is cut into rather thick (about 3.0 cm) pieces and, in this form, each piece is already gutted and separated from the skin. Then the resulting fish skin rings are stuffed and put together before cooking, carefully pretending that "it was so." Some especially busy housewives generally simplified the process of preparing fish cakes and laying them beautifully on a dish. But we, as has already been said here, are not looking for easy ways.
So, as they say, stop talking, let's go to the store, or better to the market. We need:
· Pike - 1, 5-2, 0 kg;
· Carp - 1.5 kg;
1 large onion;
1 medium carrot;
· 2 large pieces of white bread (about 2 cm thick each);
1 raw egg
1 tablespoon of semolina;
· A bunch of parsley;
· Salt, black pepper, nutmeg to taste;
· vegetable oil.
The process itself looks like this step by step:
1) Fresh (this is important!) Pike, wash, clean, remove gills and eyes.
2) Gently cut the skin in the place where the head passes into the spine, feeling the ridge, bite it with scissors. Holding the fish by the ridge, remove the skin from it with a "stocking" - it pulls off easily from a fresh carcass.
3) Pull out the insides and remove the white film (peritoneum) that runs along the ridge of the fish, there is a small accumulation of blood under it, which also needs to be removed. Separate the meat from the bones (we will not need bones in this recipe, unlike the traditional (boiled) gefilte fish, where they are used to cook fish broth). It is important that the pike must be fresh, not frozen, otherwise after freezing it will be very difficult to remove the skin from the carcass without tearing. Therefore, if you do not plan to cook pike immediately, on the day of purchase, but will freeze it, it is better to remove the skin from fresh fish and freeze the skin and meat separately.
3) Peel the carp, gut and separate the meat. Small bones - "forks", of which there are a great many in carp, can not be removed - they will be crushed in a meat grinder. We do not spare the carp skin during cleaning: we do not need it.
4) Pass the pike and carp meat through a meat grinder.
5) In a skillet, sauté finely chopped onion and coarsely grated carrots in vegetable oil for about 10 minutes.
6) Soak pieces of white bread in water or milk of your choice.
7) Combine minced meat, onion with carrots, squeezed soaked bread, add egg and semolina, chopped parsley, mix thoroughly until smooth, salt, pepper, add nutmeg to taste.
8) Fill the skin and head of the pike with the gills removed with minced meat, not stuffing very tightly so that the skin does not burst during baking.
9) Grease a baking sheet with vegetable oil, put the fish, wrap the fins and tail in foil so as not to burn. Insert 2-3 toothpicks vertically into the mouth of the pike: this will prevent it from closing, it will be beautiful and the minced meat inside the head will bake well. Grease the pike on top with vegetable oil and put it in the oven for 1 hour at a temperature of 180 degrees. Depending on the individual characteristics of the oven, this time can be increased by 15–20 minutes.
10) We let the finished pike cool down, instead of the removed eyes, we insert cranberries (or something like that, whoever likes what). Cut into portions. Serve with horseradish.
Thank you for your attention and bon appetit!
