In all the cuisines of the world there is some kind of crown dish. What is the culinary visiting card of the country. For Jews, this is stuffed carp. And this dish is not only tasty, festive, beautiful, but also ritual. Gefilte Fish, stuffed fish, is usually served on the Jewish New Year. Why don't we treat ourselves to this dish. There are not so many ingredients for it. The cooking process may seem laborious at first. But over time, when certain skills are developed, you will cope with it faster. And it is not at all necessary that a carp stuffed in Hebrew must be served in its entirety. Cut into longitudinal pieces, it is also very tasty. There are not so many variations in this dish as in Ukrainian borsch, but they still exist. In this article we will consider the Zhytomyr recipe.
Step one. Fish preparation
Gefilte Fish, a Jewish stuffed carp - not a Sephardic dish, but their more northern cousins. It especially took root in the so-called "Pale of Settlement" of the Russian Empire. Zhytomyr is just such a city in which non-Jews constituted a national minority. There, two fish are required for the dish - carp and pike. The sweet meat of the latter will serve as a filling. Every self-respecting Zhytomyr mistress removes the skin from the carp "stocking". To do this, you must first clean the fish from scales, and then from the insides, making a neat cut on the belly. Then we wrap the carp in a cellophane bag and beat it on both sides with a wooden hammer. Put in the refrigerator overnight. This technique will allow us to easily remove the skin from the fish.
Step Two Stocking skin
We are facing the most difficult stage in cooking. After all, a carp stuffed in Jewish whole should be served at the festive table. This fish has strong skin, but we must be careful. On the inside of the abdomen, not far from the cut through which we gutted the carp the day before, we make two new ones. Naturally, the skin is left intact. We grab the pulp with our fingers and begin to push it to the back. Having reached the ridge, we cut off the spine from the head and tail with scissors. We twist the skin like a stocking. The resulting meat is separated from the bones. The same can be done with the pike. To facilitate the task, you can boil this fish and remove the skin from it as necessary. We don’t throw bones - everything will fit in the Jewish economy.
Step Three Filling
Jewish stuffed carp will be tastier if we do not fill it with fish mousse, namely meat. Therefore, fillet of carp and pike pass through a meat grinder. And meticulous Zhytomyr mistresses finely chop him with a knife. Next, put everything in the stuffing that we throw into minced meat for cutlets: finely chopped onion fried in oil, a bun soaked in milk, three eggs. Only spices should be consumed for fish. This forcemeat needs to be beaten off well. Take it with your hand and throw it with force back into the bowl. So the fish will turn out more tender, and the forcemeat structure will not tear the skin of the carp. If it is still too tight, add milk. We stuff carp without fanaticism. Indeed, when boiling, the filling will swell and inevitably tear the skin. From the remaining mincemeat, you can make fish cakes another time. Sew fish abdomen.
Step Four Cooking carp
We cut thin kilograms of onion, four or five pieces of carrots, one parsley, a quarter of a large celery root. In Zhitomir, the national dish "Gefilte Fish" is called "carp stuffed in Hebrew with beets." This root crop gives the jelly an amazing ruby color. We clean and cut four medium beets in small plates, and one in three in a separate bowl. We take a large pot and cover it with the bottom of the washed husk of onions (the Jewish mistress, as we remember, does not just throw anything away). We put bones and fins in a bag of several layers of gauze, we dress it with a long thread, the end of which will hang from the pan (for convenience it can be tied to a handle). We cover the husk with half the vegetables. We put in turn carrots, onions, roots, beets. We put carp on it. Cover the remaining half of the vegetables. Pour water on the upper border. We put on the fire. When it boils, remove the foam, throw peppercorns, bay leaf, salt. Reduce the heat to a minimum and cook for two hours.
The final step in the preparation of the "Carp stuffed in Jewish"
The recipe from Zhytomyr suggests that the jelly should be ruby. To do this, add a little vinegar to the grated beets and dilute with a small amount (half a ladle is enough) of the broth. Then we carefully filter the liquid through cheesecloth. And squeeze the beet cake to the last drop. This liquid is called “kvass” in Ukrainian cuisine and is widely used in the preparation of borsch. Here we observe an interesting phenomenon, as in the “Pale of Settlement” two national culinary traditions enriched each other. Pour Ukrainian kvass into the broth, in which carp stuffed in Hebrew is cooked. Let him boil for literally a minute and turn off the fire. If you cook longer, a beautiful color will not work.
Serving carp
Let the broth cool. Pull a gauze bag with bones by the thread. We lay out part of the vegetables on the dish. We place carp on top. Carefully remove the threads. We lean against the carcass head and tail. Fill the fish with strained broth. And put in the refrigerator. And after a few hours we serve. Jewish stuffed carp, the photo of which looks very original, will be a signature dish and will amaze guests. For convenience, you can cut the fish in portions. But this should be done already in front of the amazed guests.