Gefilte fish

Gefilte Fish

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Gefilte fish

Gefilte fish (German: Gefüllter Fisch, English: filled fish) are poached

Poaching (cooking)

Poaching is the process of gently simmering food in liquid, generally water, milk, stock or wine.Poaching is particularly suitable for fragile food, such as egg , poultry, fish and fruit, which might easily fall apart or dry out....
fish patties or balls made from a mixture of ground deboned fish, mostly carp

Common carp

The Common carp or European carp is a widespread freshwater fish most closely related to the common goldfish , with which it is capable of Hybrid ....
or pike

Pike

Pike may refer to:...
. They are popular in the Ashkenazi

Ashkenazi Jews

File:Juden 1881.JPGAshkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim , are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish ethnic divisions of the Rhineland in the west of Germany....
Jew

Jew

A Jew is a member of the Jewish people, an ethnoreligious group that traces its ancestry to the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East....
ish community.

raditional recipes for gefilte fish, the fish is first deboned, often while still at the market.

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Gefilte fish (German: Gefüllter Fisch, English: filled fish) are poached

Poaching (cooking)

Common carp

The Common carp or European carp is a widespread freshwater fish most closely related to the common goldfish , with which it is capable of Hybrid ....
or pike

Pike

Pike may refer to:...
. They are popular in the Ashkenazi

Ashkenazi Jews

Jew

A Jew is a member of the Jewish people, an ethnoreligious group that traces its ancestry to the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East....
ish community.

Preparation and serving

In traditional recipes for gefilte fish, the fish is first deboned, often while still at the market. Next, the fish is ground together with eggs, onions and flour, matzoh meal or challah

Challah

Challah also known as khale , barches , berches , barkis , bergis , and kitke , is a special braided bread eaten by Ashkenazi and by some groups of Sephardic Jews on the Sabbath and holidays....
, and then stuffed into the skin of the deboned fish, giving it the name gefilte (filled or stuffed, compare the German

German language

German is a West Germanic languages, thus related to and classified alongside English language and Dutch language. It is one of the world's world language and the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union....
gefüllte). The whole stuffed fish is then poached with carrots and onions. When prepared this way, it is usually served in slices. This form of preparation eliminated the need for picking fish bones at the table and stretched the fish further, so that even poor families could enjoy fish on the Sabbath.

Sometimes, gefilte fish are found in patty form. The ground fish mixture is shaped into balls or oval patties and poached in a fish stock made from the head and bones of the fish. The poached balls are usually chilled and served with or without the jelled broth, accompanied by a horseradish

Horseradish

Horseradish is a perennial plant of the Brassicaceae family, which also includes Mustard plant, wasabi, and cabbages. The plant is probably native to southeastern Europe and western Asia, but is popular around the world today....
-vinegar

Vinegar

Vinegar is an acidic liquid processed from the fermentation of ethanol in a process that yields its key ingredient, acetic acid . It also may come in a diluted form....
sauce known as chrain (either the red variety, flavored with beets, or plain white chrain, which has a sharper taste).

Variations

Gefilte fish may be slightly sweet or savory. Preparation of gefilte fish with sugar or black pepper is considered an indicator of whether a Jewish community was Galitzianer or Litvak

Lithuanian Jews

Lithuanian Jews are Ashkenazi Jews with roots in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania .Lithuania was historically home to a large and influential Jewish community that was almost entirely eliminated during the Holocaust: see Holocaust in Lithuania....
. Traditionally, carp

Carp

Carp is a common name for various freshwater fish of the family Cyprinidae, a very large group of fish originally from Eurasia and southeast Asia....
, pike

Esox

Esox is a genus of freshwater fish, the only living genus in the family Esocidae. The type species is E. lucius, the northern pike....
, or whitefish

Coregonus

Coregonus Carolus Linnaeus, 1758, is a genus of fish in the salmon family . The type species is the common whitefish . The Coregonus species are known as whitefishes....
were used to make gefilte fish, but more recently other fish with white flesh such as Nile Perch have been used, and there is a pink variation using salmon

Salmon

Salmon is the common name for several species of fish of the family Salmonidae. Several other fish in the family are called trout,the difference is often attributed to the migratory life of the salmon as compared to the residential behaviour of trout, this holds true for the Atlantic salmon....
.

Commercial gefilte fish is sold in cans and glass jars, and packed in jelly made from fish broth. The US Patent #3,108,882 "Method for Preparing an Edible Fish Product" for this jelly, which allowed mass-market distribution of gefilte fish, was granted on October 29, 1963 to Monroe Nash

Monroe Nash

Monroe Nash was a successful United States businessman in the kosher food industry. He is credited with US Patent #3,108,882, "Method for Preparing an Edible Fish Product" for the jelly made from fish broth in which commercial gefilte fish varieties are packed....
.

There are even frozen and vegetarian variations.

Symbolism

Some people believe that gefilte fish has become a traditional food to avoid borer ("selection/choosing"), which is one of the 39 activities prohibited on Shabbat outlined in the Shulchan Aruch
Shulchan Aruch

The Shulchan Aruch is a codification, or written manual, of halacha , composed by Rabbi Yosef Karo in the 16th century. Together with its commentaries, it is considered the most authoritative compilation of halakha since the Talmud....
.

Others say that fish are not subject to "ayin hara" ("evil eye
Evil eye

The evil eye is a belief that the envy elicited by the good luck of fortunate people may result in their misfortune. The perception of the nature of the phenomenon, its causes, and possible protective measures, varies between different cultures....
"), so that a dish prepared from several fish varieties brings good luck. In the Bible, fish are symbolic of fertility: In Genesis
Genesis

Genesis or Breishit is the first book of the Bible used by Judaism and Christianity, and the first of five books of the Pentateuch or Torah....
48:15-16 Jacob
Jacob

According to the Hebrew Bible, Jacob , also known as Israel , was the third Biblical patriarchs and the ancestor of the twelve Israelites....
blesses Joseph
Joseph (Hebrew Bible)

Joseph or Yosef , is a major figure in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible . He was Jacob's eleventh son and Rachel's first. He is also mentioned favourably in the Qur'an....
and his sons by saying: "[Jacob] gave Joseph a blessing. He said, 'The God before whom my fathers, Abraham and Isaac, walked, is the God who has been my Shepherd from as far back as I can remember until this day, [sending] an angel to deliver me from all evil. May He bless the lads, and let them carry my name, along with the names of my fathers, Abraham and Isaac. May they increase in the land like fish.' "

Fish is parve, neither milk nor meat, and may be eaten at both meat and dairy meals (although some Orthodox Jews avoid eating fish and meat on the same plate).

See also

Jewish cuisine
Jewish cuisine

Jewish cuisine is a collection of international cookery traditions linked by Jewish dietary laws and Jewish holiday traditions. Certain foods, notably pork and shellfish, are forbidden; meat and dairy may not be combined, and meat must be Ritual slaughter and salted to remove all traces of blood....
Quenelle
Quenelle

A quenelle is mixture of creamed fish, chicken, or meat, sometimes combined with breadcrumbs, with a light egg binding It is usually Poaching ....
Kamaboko
Kamaboko

is a variety of Japanese processed seafood products, made from surimi, in which various white fish are pureed, formed into distinctive loaves, and then steamed until fully cooked and firm in texture....
Fish ball
Fish ball

Fish balls are a commonly cooked food in southern China and overseas Chinese communities. As the name suggests, the ball is made of fish meat that has been finely pulverized....

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