How To Make Gefilte Fish That Your Guests Will Actually Want To Eat
Throw away your jars of gray fish patties. This Rosh Hashanah, make a terrine that’ll have doubters asking for seconds.
September 18, 2014
Micah Siva
Micah Siva
I make homemade gefilte fish twice a year: Passover and Rosh Hashanah. Before Passover, at what we call a “gefilte-in,” friends assemble in my kitchen with their own pots, fish, carrots, eggs, and matzo meal to make old-fashioned gefilte fish patties. For Rosh Hashanah, I make a light, circular fish terrine that looks beautiful and has the components of gefilte fish, but is very easy to make.
Fish has always been a mainstay of the Jewish diet, and fish balls, a precursor to gefilte fish, can be traced backed to the Middle Ages in Spain, and possibly earlier to the Middle East. When Jews migrated to Eastern Europe after their expulsion from Spain, they continued the tradition. Using the flesh of large, fresh-water kosher fish, cooks added onions, garlic, a little egg, and matzo meal and stuffed the filling into the skin of the fish, poaching and sometimes baking it. On the Sabbath, it was, of course, served cold.
As the dish crossed Europe with emigrants fleeing pogroms in the late 19th century, the elaborate procedure of stuffing it back in the skin (thus the name gefilte, meaning filled or stuffed) became easier: You just wrapped a piece of skin around a fish ball and poached it. By the time gefilte fish crossed the Atlantic, the skin was gone completely.
You can buy it today in jars or cans, but I prefer my homemade version (recipe here), with dill and mustard, and poached in a Bundt pan. Turned out on a platter and featured as one of many foods on my Rosh Hashanah lunch buffet, it is always a big success. Even those who swear they would “never eat gefilte fish” come back for seconds.
Salmon Gefilte Fish Mold
Salmon Gefilte Fish Mold
2 pounds salmon fillets
1 pound cod, flounder, rockfish, or whitefish
3 medium Bermuda onions, peeled and diced (about 2 pounds)
3 tablespoons vegetable or canola oil
4 large eggs
4 tablespoons matzo meal
2 large carrots, peeled and grated
4 tablespoons snipped fresh dill, plus more for garnish
1 tablespoon salt or to taste
2 teaspoons freshly ground pepper
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons sugar
Parsley, for garnish
Beet horseradish sauce, to serve
1. Have your fish store grind the fillets or grind them yourself, one at a time, in a food processor or meat grinder. Don’t puree the fish—you want some texture. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Grease a 12-cup Bundt pan and fill a larger pan (such as a large Pyrex dish) with 2 inches of hot water.
2. In a large pan over medium-high heat, sauté the diced onions in the oil until soft and transparent but not brown. Set aside to cool.
3. Put the fish, onions, eggs, 2 cups water, matzo meal, carrots, 4 tablespoons dill, salt, pepper, mustard, and sugar in the bowl of a standing mixer equipped with the flat beater. Beat at medium speed for 10 minutes.
4. Pour the mixture into the Bundt pan, then put the pan inside the larger water-filled dish (called a Bain Marie). Smooth the top with a spatula. Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 1 hour or until the center is solid. Remove the Bundt pan from the water dish, then allow the terrine to cool slightly for at least 20 minutes. Slide a long knife around the outer and inner edges of the Bundt pan, then carefully invert the terrine onto a flat serving plate.
5. Refrigerate for several hours or overnight. If any water accumulates on the serving dish, carefully drain it away before serving. Slice the terrine as you would a torte and serve as an appetizer, garnished with parsley and dill and served with beet horseradish sauce. Leftovers keep for up to five days.
Yield: 15 to 20 slices
The Recipe
Joan Nathan is Tablet Magazine’s food columnist and the author of 10 cookbooks including King Solomon’s Table: a Culinary Exploration of Jewish Cooking from Around the World.
