Ingredients:

• 2-3 medium size fish (I used bronzini and white seabass, total weight was about 3 pounds)
• 5-6 medium size yellow onions ( the written proportions are – 400 gram onions per 1 kilogram of fish)
• 6 medium size carrots
• 1 small beet, peeled
• 5 slices of dried in the oven white bread (not really for the Passover, but Matzah flour can be used)
• 10 walnuts, about 2 tbsp
• 3 eggs

Start with planning. This dish does require a lot of work, but if planned well – you can make it in stages spending some time within couple of days and then it’s not so overwhelming.

But first thing first – buy a fish. It should be good fresh scaled fish, always better to have a combination of 2 different kinds of fish. In Russia we used carp and pike, which is hard to find in the US and you don’t really want to use them if it’s found. Carp is not a good fish here. I found bronzini’s and white sea bass, I think snapper or trout will work too. The fish should be medium size, not too big, no bigger than a foot long. Makes it harder to process, but usually the smaller the tastier. You should ask to scale the fish but keep the heads and tails on, it is important!

Step1. Separate fish flesh from the skin and bones. All you need is a good knife and a lot of patience. This is the most laborious and least pleasant part.

• Cut heads and tails off, put them into a separate bowl and keep in the fridge. You have to extract the eyes if you didn’t specifically ask to do it in the store.
• Cut each fish into portion size pieces, keeping your knife along the skin – separate flesh from skins, trying to preserve those skins (you will need them later for the presentation); separate the flesh from skeleton; preserve biggest bones;

Step 2. Prepare vegetables.

• Peel onion, carrots and beet,
• Chop onions,
• Grind carrots and beet. Preserve good dried onion peels!
• Pour about 1/3 cup of light olive oil into a heavy pan, add all your vegetable, season them with salt and pepper (start with 1 tbsp) and start frying them.
• Once the vegetables are almost cooked through and onions are golden brown – start adding some water into the pan (start with 1/2 cup of water) switching to brazing and braze for about 15-20 min.
• You should have them fully cooked, check for seasoning, turn the heat off and let them cool

Step 3. Stuffing

• Have the flesh of the fish, more than half of your cooked vegetables mixture, slices of dried white bread and walnuts ready for grinding.
• Grind all together using some electrical grinder, maybe you can use food processor, but I never tried. It should be ground, not pasted.
• Add eggs, salt, pepper, and combine. I do it with my hands, you can use spoon or maybe even a whisk, it’s very soft mixture.

Step 4. Prepare your pan.

Take the pan with the vegetables, place several onion peels in the very bottom, under the cooked vegetable mixture. Put heads and tails onto the peels. Pour about 2 cups of water and turn on the heat.

Step 5. Stuff the fish or just make the cottlets.

• Form portion size pieces or cottletes, wrapping skin around each piece. Each piece should be fried a little on both sides.
• Pour a table spoon of light olive oil into the skillet , add table spoon of butter and start frying cottletes in batches, about 2-3 minutes on each side. You may need to add some more oil and butter as you go.
• Once a cotlette has that golden crust – load it into the pan with heads, tails and vegetables. You normally have more “stuffing” than skins.
• Once all cottletes are fried and loaded into the pan, make sure it’s not overloaded, it should be barely covered with sauce. Put the lid on, bring to a boil, reduce heat to the very minimal.

• Check sauce for spices, add several bay leaves, black pepper corns and ground pepper. Let it cook slowly for at least 2 and a half hours with the lid on. If you see there is too much sauce bubbling over the lid – slightly open the lid and allow it evaporate.
• Let the fish completely cool down and put into fridge.
• Serve cold with horseradish as a condiment, it’s classic!