Gefilte Fish stands for “stuffed fish”. Don’t worry, the pale balls in a jar you can see in supermarkets have nothing to do with it.
This is the most emotional post for me, though it’s hard to imagine how fish can cause any emotions. This recipe has been passed down through several generations in my family. I wrote it down many years ago, five days before my mother passed away. I was very young then, and not much of a cook. Those days were very tragic and gastronomy was the last thing on my mind. But both my mom and I felt it was very important to capture. Usually, every Jewish family has their own recipe and I think it is important to preserve the tradition that my ancestors celebrated with, carrying it through two world wars, pogroms and migrations across three continents.
My mom followed the old recipe she remembered her mother (my grandmother) cooked. Over the years she added some details and tips she learned from others, even from the books and memoirs of Jewish authors. And she developed the recipe that completely transforms that fish into something so pleasing and delicate, yet savory, something that completely melts in your mouth and you cannot even tell what’s in it.
It is a dish that was always on the table every big holiday, not necessarily Passover, and as I cooked it 3 days ago it smelled exactly like the holidays smelled when I was a kid.
I know that nobody will jump right away to replicate this recipe, it is a very laborious dish. But even if my son cooks it once in several years (that’s how often I cook it, once in almost a decade) – I will consider my mission accomplished.
And here it is.
