Old Chaim dies
On the bed behind the wall.
Suddenly from the kitchen flies
Wonderful heavenly scent.
They smell wonderful (just flour!)
Latkes, kugel and forshmak,
stuffed pike,
Sweet tsimes and lekakh.
Chaim Mordechai asks:
“Run to grandma, baby!
Let me dear Sarah
Will give a piece of fish-fish ... "
Appearing on the threshold
Granddaughter reported that
What Bob said to him:
"This fish is for later!"
(Folk art)
There was not a drop of Jewish blood in my grandmother's veins... In any case, the opposite fact has not been documented anywhere, I know this for sure: in the troubled times that preceded the final collapse of the Union, some research in our maternal lineage, my mother and I honestly produced - it did not work out! Azochen Way! To be for me and for my children goyim until the end of days... Gewalt! And yet ... A native of the Zhytomyr region, born and raised among the closest neighbors - the Jews, the granny absorbed all the charm of the shtetl color from childhood, knew and respected the customs and traditions of the Jewish people, until the end of her life she retained a peculiar, drawn-out melodious dialect and imagery expressions (“Have you already done the bazaar?”) c large quantity Jewish words and, of course, was a great connoisseur and connoisseur Jewish cuisine! It is to her that my mother and I owe recipes for such great food like a traditional forshmak , delicious yuh (both the first and the second in one pan), the most tender sweet and sour roast with prunes , wonderful "raw" eggplant caviar (it is also called "Odessa-style blue caviar!"), festive stuffed neck , honey-sweet tsimes and, of course, unforgettable gefilte fish – classical gefilte fish in Hebrew. I would like to tell you about the latter, especially since, probably, everyone has heard about this dish, and it has been repeatedly mentioned both in folklore and in fiction!
I don't know which Aidish Kopf (Jewish head - this is pronounced with great respect!) The first thought came to cook stuffed fish in this way, but this man was truly worthy of a monument during his lifetime! I’ll make a reservation right away: recipes (or rather, variations on a theme) for preparing this festive dish, in fact, like Ukrainian borscht, exists great amount, each hostess tastes subtly different and each will swear to you that it is her recipe that is “the best”! Yes, this, perhaps, is not so important: cooking is a creative process, and we all bring something of our own, personal to it. I also don’t know for certain which of my grandmother’s neighbors it was recorded from - it could be Aunt Betya, and Aunt Fira or Sofa ... Perhaps grandmother once mentioned this, but the name of the “author”, to Unfortunately, it didn't stay in my memory! So let's just assume it's gefilte fish in Zhytomyr …
Let's start with the fish ... Grandmother categorically insisted on pike, but at the same time specified that it was much tastier to mix the meat of two (or more) types of fish: pike with its sweetish meat, nevertheless, in her opinion, is somewhat dry, "in a pair "It would be nice to take a fatter fish with it, but at the same time, you must definitely remember that removing the skin (the most time-consuming and difficult process!) From some types of fish without damaging it is very problematic! Therefore, today a “duet” with a pike will be a carp (ordinary, not a mirror one!), similar in weight to our pike - about 1 kg.
Required products: 
Pike about 1 kg
- carp about 1 kg
- onion 1 kg
- carrots - 4-5 medium pieces.
- beets - 3-4 medium pieces. + 1 small (for juice)
- parsley - 1 root
- celery - 1 piece of root
- eggs - 3-4 pcs.
- white stale bread or loaf (crumb) - 1/4 loaf
- milk (for soaking bread)
- bay leaf - 2-3 pcs.
- black peppercorns - 6-8 pcs.
- salt, ground black pepper - to taste
- citric acid (at the tip of a knife) or apple cider vinegar (1 tsp)
- lemon, parsley (for decoration).
There are also a lot of ways to remove this same skin from fish. Someone, carefully cutting around at the level of the upper fins, removes it with a “stocking”, someone - by making an incision from the side of the abdomen, there are options with an incision along the dorsal fin, and even - cutting it immediately into portioned pieces, skin each one separately! I, like my grandmother, do not like it when minced meat comes into contact with water in the process of cooking fish (grandmother in this case sneered contemptuously: “You can only cook fish-fish in pieces shlimazl (crazy), so I remove the skin either with a "stocking" (it's so good to "handle" the pike, then I sew the head back on!), Or by making a cut on the abdomen - this is how I'm going to gut the carp.
So, first - pike. “Trick” from grandmother No. 1: in order to make the skin easier to remove from it, the fish should first be lightly beaten off with a wooden mallet! True, now few people have this item in the kitchen, so an ordinary wooden rolling pin is quite suitable. We wrap the fish in cellophane and tap it evenly on all sides with a rolling pin. Unfortunately, this time I got the fish already cleaned and gutted, with a cut along the abdomen, so I will have to skin it using this method! We cut the pelvic fins along the cut and start slowly and carefully (when you need a hurry - you yourself know!) Separate the skin from the meat (as necessary - use scissors and thin, sharp knife- "toadbug"). Having reached the dorsal fin, we turn the fish over and do the same procedure on the other side. Now we cut the ridge at the tail and head with scissors and carefully cut the dorsal fin from the inside (very carefully so as not to pierce, otherwise it will be full Drek (literally - cheap stuff, nonsense!). It turns out a skin with a tail and head and a fish carcass. The head of the pike should be completely cleaned, leaving one "shell". We take the carp: we repeat the entire sequence of operations and get another skin ready for stuffing with a head and tail and a fish carcass.
Now let's prepare the minced meat. We carefully free the meat from the bones, first pulling out the ridge, then small bones, and together with onions (one large onion is enough) and pre-soaked in milk or water (grandmother preferred milk!) White bread is scrolled through a meat grinder (three times!). Now add eggs, salt and pepper to taste. The resulting minced meat needs to be thoroughly “knocked out” - in the process of mixing, the minced meat is thrown with force against the table, cutting board or simply into a bowl - then the fish will be much more tender! If the stuffing turned out to be very tight, you need to add a little water or milk, in which the bread was soaked.
Fill the fish skin and head with minced meat. You can’t stuff it very tightly - during cooking, the minced meat will swell and the skin may burst! Sew up the incision on the belly. The classic requires laying on the bottom of the pan, where fish and fish bones will be boiled. Grandma did it a little differently - “trick” No. 2: fish bones, fins and scales (yes, yes, although she psul - inedible, but gives a wonderful gelling effect!) She placed it in a gauze bag, the “tail” of which she tied to the handle of the pan - at the right time it will be easy to remove it along with all the contents! We line the bottom of the pan with washed onion peel,
We put half of the carrots, onions, roots and beets peeled and cut into thin plates,
We put our fish on the vegetables and cover with the rest of the vegetables on top.
There should be a lot of vegetables in general, in a ratio (by weight) with fish almost 1: 1. Pour water into the pan so that the contents are covered, add salt, bay leaf and peppercorns and put on fire. After the fish boils, remove the foam, reduce the gas to a minimum and cook for about 2 hours.
The onion peel gives the broth a very beautiful brownish-golden color, you could leave it like that ... But we do holiday dish! "Trick" from grandmother number 3: at the very end of cooking, add a few crystals to the broth citric acid(or a little apple cider vinegar) and pour in freshly squeezed beetroot juice(grandmother rubbed the beets on a fine grater and squeezed through gauze), boil for literally 5 minutes and turn off - the broth will have a luxurious ruby \u200b\u200bcolor!
The finished fish must be allowed to cool in the broth in which it was cooked - if you take it out hot, it will turn out dry! We take the fish out of the slightly warm broth, take out the threads and fins, cut it into portioned pieces, put it in a “fan” on a deep dish along with the heads and tails (it’s good to put some of the vegetables with which the fish was cooked on the bottom), pour strained broth and put in the refrigerator for freezing.
This is how it looks when finished! From myself I can say: this dish is able to become an adornment of any, the most exquisite table, it is eaten instantly, while the delight of the guests and compliments to the hostess are guaranteed for the whole evening ... So - it's worth the trouble!
I’ll ask you to additionally evaluate my efforts: the fact is that I practically don’t eat fish - in my childhood I had a severe poisoning after a treat in the form of a sandwich with red caviar and strawberries with sour cream for dessert (I’m allergic to strawberries + a combination of fish and milk for me absolutely unacceptable)... With pleasure I can only eat fish products that do not have a pronounced "fishy" smell - sprats, for example, tuna, smoked fish. But crayfish, shrimps, mussels and squids can be eaten in unlimited quantities. That's it!
Lachaim (for life!) and - bon appetit!
In fact, we will start carp and stew. And not a whole fish, but in pieces. It will be delicious! Jewish-style stuffed fish takes about two and a half hours to cook. Therefore, time will have to be planned.
So, a simple recipe for Jewish stuffed fish with a photo is in front of you. Go!
The ingredients needed to make Jewish stuffed fish are as follows:
- carp - 1 pc. (about 2 kg)
- bulb - 2 pcs.
- carrots - 1 pc. (large)
- bay leaf - 2 pcs.
- black peppercorns - 1/2 teaspoon
- loaf or White bread- 3 slices
- salt and black pepper - to taste
- egg - 1 pc.
How to cook Jewish stuffed fish at home?
Wash and clean the carp. Cut off the fins. Cut into 2 cm pieces.
Cut the meat out of each piece of fish, just between the skin and the large bone. Don't hurt your skin! We will fill these voids with minced meat, like a big hole. Clean your head too. 
Let's get stuffing. Remove the crust from a loaf or roll. Soak the bun in milk. 
Peel one onion and cut into cubes. Heat up in a frying pan butter and fry the chopped onion in it, stirring, until translucent. 
Pass fish meat, fried onions and rolls through a meat grinder. Add salt, pepper and egg to them. Stir well. If you wish, you can skip the filling through the meat grinder again. 
Stuff the “voids” of the fish with minced meat. Simply put, stuff the pieces of fish.
Place peeled and sliced carrots in a wide bottomed pot. Cut the onion with the husk into rings. Send peppercorns and bay leaves there. 
Place over vegetables in a bowl. stuffed carp. Fill with boiling water. The water should just cover the fish. 
Simmer the stuffed Jewish fish over low heat under a covered lid for two hours. Do not forget to remove the foam with a slotted spoon. 
Put the finished fish on a plate, forming a carp. Sprinkle with the sauce in which the carp was cooked. Serve Jewish stuffed carp with vegetables and boiled rice or potatoes. 
Jewish stuffed fish is ready! Bon Appetit!
Gefilte fish, you want?
Shabbat Shalom, Haverim!
Oddly enough, but I am not a big fan of Ashkenazi cuisine. Sweet cymes is not for me. But well cooked stuffed chicken neck, forshmak, "Jewish penicillin" ( chicken bouillon) with matzah, and I respect gefilte fish, including as excellent snacks for vodka.
Stuffed fish, like many Jewish dishes of the Pale of Settlement, is a dish of poverty, when one piece of meat or a limited amount of fish has to feed an entire family. The Jews in the shtetls tried to make a dinner out of the "spread five", in the words of Sholom Aleichem. Gefilte fish, moreover, it is a beautiful, festive dish, which, if koshrut is observed, in contrast to meat, is quite combined with dairy. Such fish is used by religious Jews as a dish for the Sabbath meal. For one cannot work on the Sabbath, and even removing food from food is considered work, that is, in this context, if whole fish were fried, then bones would have to be removed from it when eating. This is a violation, you can only extract food from food, for example, gnaw on a large bone with small pieces of meat.
Like any iconic dish of any cuisine in the world, this dish has many variations. Here regional features come into force, the types of fish that are available in the area, and any hostess has her own version and considers it the most correct.
I present to you the option that my wife was taught by her grandmother from the series “as for myself” ...
In this version, the fish is not laid out entirely on a dish, but is made into “cutlets”.
So!
I went to Privoz to the fish row. Usually, the wife’s grandmother used carp mixed with silver carp for this recipe, somehow good pike in our area you can’t always buy it, but it is still more used for whole stuffing.
Comrades advised carp and I, just in case, asked about its presence, received an affirmative answer.
The fish was alive, did not smell of mud, and at my request was cleaned and butchered. The head was cut off, the ridge with the tail was cut out, the carcass was milled. The fish was small, 1800 gr., just for 1-2 days, so as not to get tired of eating the same thing for a week. It was decided to make a dish only from it.
Came home, laid out the source code.
A fish, one carrot, 5 bulbs, one more was needed further, 2 eggs, white bun nicknamed "Odessa bagel", milk.
We cut the fish into pieces of 8 mm.
We cut the onion into cubes and begin to stew in a cauldron for vegetable oil. First over medium heat, then over medium heat, covered.
With a sharp knife, we separate the skin from the meat, trying to leave it whole.
In the photo below: in the left pile of the skin, in the middle is the pulp, on the right is the head, tail with a ridge, bones and fins.
The head should not have eyes, gills, and the bone that gives bitterness is also removed. Google it and get it.
Pass the pulp through a meat grinder.
Onions are stirred all the time. We open the lid, increase the heat and achieve a golden color, despite the fact that the onion is rather not fried, but stewed.
Let the onion cool down.
Soak the bun in a little milk.
We pass the fish through a meat grinder again (so that the minced meat is more tender and gets rid of bones that could remain), adding half the fried onion without oil, a raw onion, a bun. Add 2 eggs, salt and pepper.
Knead the minced meat thoroughly with your hands.
We lay out the skins with the remains of the fish with the inside up.
Minced meat dipped in cold water hands, we mold cutlets of the appropriate size and blind them with the skin.
Fry our meatballs until crispy. First, from the skinless side, and only then on the stronger “skinned” side.
We spread our blanks on a dish in order to cool.
V large saucepan put the head and spine on the bottom of the bone, on top of the carrots, cut into nickels, the remains of fried onions, along with fat.
Next ... Next is a trick that you just need to accept a priori if you want to do this recipe.
Probably, if I, doing it intuitively, would first fill it with water and boil the bones with vegetables, and only then lay the cutlets, but according to this recipe, our fried semi-finished products are laid on top raw ingredients and filled with purified cold water so that it covers everything a little. Everything is salted, peppered.
Some put under the bottom, beet rings and onion peel.
It is brought to a boil, closed with a lid, the fire is reduced, it is left to gurgle slowly.
After an hour, open, add fragrant laurel and pepper same. Season with salt and pepper.
Let's leave it for another hour.
It would seem that the fish is ready in 20 minutes, and we languish it for 2 hours, but here it has its own logic (Jewish) and its own taste (the same).
Stuffed fish, gefilte fish, - a traditional dish national Jewish cuisine. Culinary historians claim that Ashkenazi Jews stuffed fish as early as the Middle Ages. Cooked large pike, carp, pike perch. They removed the skin from the fish and filled the "stocking" minced meat from fillet with vegetable additives. Today, “stuffed fish” is called not only the well-known or carp (we will cook it), but also cutlets from minced fish boiled in fish broth.
By the way, about the broth. It gets thick fish jelly, which can be served as a bay of fish - then you get an exceptionally tasty gelled jellied fish without any gelatin, and as a separate dish.
Carp is often stuffed - it is a very tasty, fatty fish with thick skin. It should, however, be borne in mind that the “stocking” made of fish skin cannot be stuffed tightly with minced meat - it will burst. Therefore, if minced meat remains, it is better to mold cutlets from it and put it in a cauldron to cook along with the fish.
To get the right gefilte fish, you do not need to add cookies, crackers, straws and other unsuitable ingredients that can be found in modern recipes Jewish stuffed fish Previously, there was no cracker, but there was always a stale, good old bun or loaf, in last resort, semolina. The roll should be soaked in water or milk, and adding semolina, let the minced meat stand for a while so that the grits swell and absorb excess moisture from the minced meat.
And the last thing I would like to say: if you do not have a meat grinder, use the blender very carefully. blender interrupts fish fillet to dense homogeneous mass, as a result, stuffed fish will not turn out juicy and airy. This will be a homogeneous piece of minced fish. The meat grinder, on the other hand, leaves small pieces of fish fillet in the minced meat (even if you twist the minced meat several times), and in the cut, the fish will turn out to be porous, airy, juicy and very tasty.
Ingredients
- carp 1 pc. (1.5-2 kg)
- onion 3-4 pcs.
- carrot 1 pc.
- stale bun (or loaf) 300 g (if semolina - 4 tablespoons)
- chicken egg 1-2 pcs.
- salt to taste
- pepper h. m. to taste
- vegetable oil 1 tbsp. l.
How to cook Jewish stuffed fish
To begin with, the fish must be cleaned of scales, rinsed under running water, and dried with a paper towel. To quickly remove the mucus, you can sprinkle the fish with coarse salt, rub into the scales, and then rinse.
The most time-consuming part of cooking is removing the skin. Do it different ways. Here are the most common:
1. Cut off the head and tighten the skin with a "stocking". The “stocking” skin is stuffed with minced meat, sewn up at the place where the head is cut off, but the head is not sewn on, but is also filled with minced meat. Then everything is boiled together and laid out on a dish, joining the pieces.
2. A method when the head is not cut off, but the fish is cut along the belly. Stuff, then sew up the incision.
3. Cut the fish along the back, remove the dorsal fin, which runs along the entire length of the fish and tightly “holds” the skin, and then remove the skin. Stuffed. The back is sewn up.
The method used by Tatyana is the “improved” first, does not involve the use of a needle and thread and consists in cutting off the head incompletely, “breaking” the spine, leaving the skin intact, and then pulling off the skin, helping yourself with a knife and scissors at the attachment points fins.
It's hard to say which way is better. Probably for every hostess.
First, I cut the abdomen under the fins to the ridge, cut the ridge, but left the skin intact in this place so as not to separate the head. I removed the insides, washed the fish under running water and dried it again with a paper towel. If your hand is thin, it fits well into the abdomen, and the insides can be removed, so to speak, in one motion.
In the next step, I cut the skin with a knife from the carcass of the fish, pry it with my index finger and separated it from the fish carcass with light movements from side to side. I repeated this until I lifted all the skin. To separate the skin around the fins, I cut the muscles around the cartilage holding the skin with kitchen shears or a small knife, leaving the cartilage on the skin. The tail, like the head, was left on the skin.
The correct "stocking" of fish skin looks something like this picture. As you can see, the head, tail and fins remained in place along with the skin.
Now that the “stocking” is ready, you can start preparing the minced meat. With a sharp knife, I cut the carp fillet from the bones. If you can’t do it very carefully, you should take an ordinary spoon with a sharp nose and scrape off the remains of the fish fillet from the bones with it.
Then I proceeded to prepare the stuffing. I finely chopped the onion, which should be quite a lot, since it is he who gives the fish juiciness and sweetness. I fried the onion over low heat, until transparent, but not golden, because golden onions will give bitterness.
Fish fillet, onion and pre-soaked in water (can be in milk) roll passed through a meat grinder with a fine sieve. In order not to come across small bones, the minced meat should be twisted twice. Salted and peppered the minced meat, added the egg and kneaded well.
At the bottom of the form in which the fish will be cooked (I have this goose), laid out fish bones, sliced large pieces onions and carrots.
Loosely, about 2/3, filled the fish "stocking" with minced meat. If "stuffed", the skin may burst during cooking. To make it easier, I moistened a spoon with water, collected minced meat and thus “packed”, distributing the minced meat “inside” and shaping the fish. You don't need to sew anything.
Fish cooking
Lay the fish out on top of the vegetables. She poured water so that it covered the fish not completely, but by 2/3, and put it on fire. When the water boiled, turned on the quietest fire, salted and peppered the broth, added bay leaf. I cooked the fish for 1.5 hours, closing the lid. After the stuffed fish is ready, you should not rush either: it should cool in the broth.
What happens during cooking? The skin is gelled (after all, it contains collagen), and if small bones remain in the minced meat, then they finally boil soft.
Then I took the fish out of the broth, put it on a convenient dish and put it in the refrigerator for several hours (preferably overnight) to solidify, so the natural gelatin will hold the minced meat together, and it will be easier to cut the fish into portions. How long does stuffed fish keep in the refrigerator? 3-4 days.
The broth is strained, it can also be used. It turns out gelled, and it can be served with fish in a small broth bowl. And you can boil potatoes and carrots in it.
I cut the chilled fish into portions, put it on a serving dish, garnished it only with greens: carp is quite fatty fish, you should not pour mayonnaise on it.
As you can see, in the cut, Jewish stuffed fish turns out to be porous and very juicy. For color, you can crumble a pinch of paprika.
If you decide to get acquainted with Israeli cuisine, then Jewish stuffed carp is just what you need! You will never regret the time and effort spent. After all, the dish is simply amazing. The delicacy succeeds amazingly tasty, tender, juicy, fragrant. Moreover, despite the mythical complexity of the recipe, you should not be afraid of such a culinary experiment. Everything will turn out just for "5+" even for novice cooks. As a result, on your table will be fish snack, which is ideal for both daily diet and for holiday menu. Let's experiment!
Cooking time -3 hours.
The number of servings is 4.
Ingredients
Carp stuffed in Jewish style is made from the most familiar and simple products. If you decide to beat the proposed recipe, then you are guaranteed to definitely not have to find it all with difficulty. necessary ingredients and angry that you can't find rare and expensive components. Everything here is very, very simple and accessible:
- carp - 1 carcass weighing about 1.5 kg;
- salt - 1 tsp;
- onion - 2 heads;
- granulated sugar - 1 tsp;
- white crackers - 2 tbsp. l.;
- bay leaf - 2 pcs.;
- beets - 3 pcs.;
- ground pepper(black) - ½ tsp;
- allspice - 5 peas;
- vegetable oil - 2 tbsp. l.;
- black pepper - 10 peas.
How to cook Jewish stuffed carp
If you do not know how to cook Jewish stuffed carp, then you should not worry. Learn the tricks and some of the features of Israeli cuisine, without even leaving the borders own kitchen, quite realistic and quite simple. You should be armed step by step recipe with photos and video clips that simply and without unnecessary wisdom talk about cooking carp stuffed with Jewish recipe. So let's get started?
- First you should do the carp itself. The raw carcass will need to be thoroughly rubbed with salt. Such a simple technique will allow you to remove mucus from the fish. Then the carp will need to be thoroughly rinsed in running water and patted a little with paper napkins or towels. Now you need to clean off all the scales from the carcass. This work should be approached diligently and thoroughly, so that nothing superfluous remains on the finished carp. Then you should cut off all the fins from the carcass. It remains only to complete the preparation of the carp by cutting it along the back. Through the resulting hole, all the insides should be removed from the carcass.
- At the tail and near the head, you will need to cut the fish spine. Near the back, you need to trim the skin a little. To do this, you should use the sharpest knife to cut the skin, and not tear it. Gently insert your finger into the resulting incision. This is the gap between the skin and the muscles. In this case, it is necessary to carefully and accurately separate the skin from the main mass. While moving experienced chefs recommend on an arc. This is how our result will turn out, as in the photo below.
- What do we do next? Onion you will need to clean, chop and fry a little in a pan with the addition of a small amount vegetable oil. Fish fillets will need to be separated from the bones. A little water must be mixed with white breadcrumbs. Onions and fish fillets will need to be scrolled at least twice through a meat grinder. Pour ground pepper into the resulting mixture. That's where the crackers go. Sprinkle the mass with sugar and salt. In a separate bowl, you will need to pour vegetable oil. Thread a needle and dip it into this prepared oil.
- Now we have the most responsible and difficult job of stuffing carp according to a Jewish recipe. Skin stitching should begin. In this case, the needle will need to be constantly dipped in a bowl with vegetable oil. After you complete the sewing of the tail of the carcass, you can begin to fill the workpiece with minced meat.
On a note! When stuffing carp in a Jewish way, every time you should dip a spoon into water and only then scoop up the filling and put it into the workpiece. By the way, you should not tamp the fish too hard. Otherwise, it will simply break in the process of further heat treatment.
- Next, you need to take a deep pan. Raw beets are thoroughly washed and cut into slices. They must be laid out on the bottom of the selected container. Gauze should be placed on top. 1 liter of drinking water is poured into the container. A teaspoon of salt is added. Peppercorns are also laid out here and bay leaves. Fish preparation is laid out. It is proposed to boil the fish over low heat. But you can also send it to the oven.
