Mom’s Homemade Gefilte Fish

Okay, so it’s not exactly my MIL’s recipe anymore since I’ve tweaked it a bit but she was the one who started me off on making my own g. fish for holidays and the occasional Shabbat.

I won’t lie, this is a bit of a patchka (fuss).  It tastes unlike any of those frozen loaves you throw in to boil, it’s blasphemy to compare it.  You are eating fish and it’s terrific.  But just know, this takes time.

On Passover, I make it with potato starch and during the year with breadcrumbs (though I’ve been known to make the Passover version during the year as well, primarily for my GF nieces and nephew).    You can adjust the sweetness level to taste, we like ours sweet but not too.

If I go specially to the fish guy, I get all the bones and head to jellify the stock but often I have no time (or patience for yet another shop to go to) and I buy the ground frozen fish.  I get the kind that is fresh frozen but still, be very very careful to fully defrost if you go that way or you can end up with nasty fish soup.

Gefilte Fish

1 kilo ground fish – I use a combo of carp and silver carp, my MIL used to use 1/3 each of those and 1/3 Buri which is grey mullet.  I’ve skipped this as it”s quite expensive and a pain to get if not in a fish shop though it does add flavor, you can use carp and whitefish as well

one large onion or 2 medium peeled and quartered

1 large or 2 medium carrots peeled and chunked

1/3-1/2 cup sugar

2  teaspoons salt

a pinch of pepper if you wish – my kids complain (my ADULT kids) if it’s peppery as “too charif” or too hot. It’s as you like

1/2 cup potato starch or 3/4 – 1 cup of breadcrumbs

3 large eggs

Take the onion and carrot and throw into a food processor, process till finely chopped.  I then toss in the eggs and give them a whirl with the salt and sugar to follow.  Take out a nice sized bowl (get ready to squish all your ingredient together, I whip out my trusty dusty latex food gloves) and put the carefully drained fish (if frozen, gently squish the ground fish to squeeze out the water, till you are sure there is no surfeit of water-loggedness.  This is quite critical to the texture of the fish and so it will not fall apart in the cooking)  into the bowl.  Then, shake the potato starch or breadcrumbs on top.  Work into the fish.  Take the processed mixture and pour on top.  Squish all together- that’s the fun part.  Let sit together for 15 minutes at least to absorb the starch/crumbs.  This matters since you can then adjust to see if the fish mixture feels too watery.  If so, add 3 tablespoon of starch or 1/4 cup of crumbs.

You can at this point if you choose, add 1 cup thoroughly drained and squeezed out frozen chopped spinach (defrosted, of course) to add a pretty color.  It can be a nice change of pace.

Now I have a few different ways of making the final product.

Take out 3 squares of parchment paper.  Take a third of the mixture, and put in the middle of the paper, patting the fish mixture into a log and then folding in the sides of the parchment paper to cover and then taking the paper from the bottom and rolling over the fish and tuck under (Just like the frozen fish rolls).  Do this with all the mixture till you have 3 rolls.  At this point, you can freeze the rolls which makes them easier to handle and then you can:

1. set a nice sized fish pot on the stove, fill with water, bring to boil, add a teaspoon of salt, a tablespoon of sugar and a peeled carrot and let simmer. Gently lay rolls (in the parchment paper)  in pot and cook for an hour and 15 minutes.
2. bring oven to 350 Fahrenheit.  Take frozen OR fresh rolls,  in their parchment paper, put into a loaf pan,slightly bigger than the rolls.  Pour boiling water carefully in edges of pan to not quite cover fish, cover with aluminium foil tightly and bake about an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes.  Peek at them after 1 hour.  The cool part of this is you get the texture of boiled g. fish without worrying that the loaf will fall apart.  I personally prefer this to the regular baked g. fish which then gets browned and the texture is different.
3. You can be an amazing balaboosta and make individual fish patties.  This is a ton of work and I’ve stopped doing it.  I’ve never had anyone reject a slice with a jaunty piece of cooked carrot atop it.    Let rolls cool, spill out the water from the pan (carefully, now) remove parchment paper (yes, don’t forget this step.  If you leave paper on the fish, it’s texture changes and gets watery) and refrigerate. Serve on bed of lettuce with horseradish sauce and mayo on the side.