A Crispy Dish: Gefilte Fish, Fried to Perfection
By Aaron Kagan
Americans are notorious for consuming fried foods, including the recent trend of deep-frying the Thanksgiving turkey. Yet our affair with hot oil has never spilled over into the realm of gefilte fish, much to the chagrin of Jews across the Atlantic.
Fried gefilte fish might sound a bit unsettling to those familiar with the poached variety, but in the United Kingdom, frying is often the preferred preparation of this emblematic dish. In fact, fried gefilte fish is so popular with British Jews that many are shocked to learn not everyone else eats it that way.
“Is it that the fried version may not be usual in the USA?” wrote Eric Wilton, a London-area marketing consultant and gefilte fish aficionado, in an e-mail to the Forward. “It certainly is my favored variety!”
In researching this phenomenon, I spoke with many British Jews who, like Wilton, were passionate about the dish but had no idea that fried gefilte fish was endemic to the U.K. Some were even downright insulting about any gefilte fish that wasn’t cooked in oil. Yonatan Ariel, an educator and former resident of England who now lives in Israel, described boiled gefilte as “looking like cement” and the fried version as “looking like a latke,” making his bias quite apparent.
Rosemary Peters, an Edgware resident who works for the Association of Jewish Refugees in London, was equally blunt in her assessment of the situation. “Jews in the U.S. do not know what they are missing if they only eat the boiled version,” she said.
Peters also noted that fried gefilte fish is the easiest option when it comes to cooking. “It appears to me that the older generation tended to eat more of the boiled variety, perhaps because it required a good fish bone stock and people were happier then to spend time cooking,” she said.
To determine if fried gefilte fish is sold in the United States, I called the one source I thought would be most likely to carry it: Zabar’s. When I asked if the market offered this particular dish, the employee I spoke with answered without hesitation, saying “No, never,” as if I had spoken heresy. It was clear that if I was going to try fried gefilte fish, I would have to make it myself. With Passover just around the corner, there was no time like the present.
Like many American Jews, the only way I’d ever prepared gefilte fish involved twisting the lid off a jar. By making my own from scratch, I realized just how good the dish can be when assembled from fresh ingredients. I also learned that while I like gefilte fish, I love fried gefilte fish.
While the humble gefilte fish is known by some as the hot dog of the fish world, there is actually a fine line between it and the more gastronomically acceptable seafood terrine or pâté: All three are made from roughly the same stuff. Even within the Jewish community, gefilte fish is a love it or hate it food. I suggest, however, that skeptics try gefilte fish that is both homemade and fried. When enrobed in a thin crust, it transcends all stereotypes and is a great example of the marvelous things one can do with fish.
Your local fishmonger should be able to grind the fish for you, and if not, a food processor is a viable alternative. While you’re at it, make some homemade chrain. Everyone I spoke with, whether British or American, seemed to agree on one thing: Gefilte fish must be eaten with this sharp horseradish-and-vinegar condiment. And like the fish it accompanies, chrain is also easy to make at home and much better than the jarred equivalent.
There may be regional differences between British and American Jews, but fried gefilte fish should not be one of them. And it’s certainly no stranger than a deep-fried turkey.
Aaron Kagan is a freelance writer living in the Boston area.
Fried Gefilte Fish
Makes 10-12 patties
1½ pounds ground fish (such as carp, pike, haddock or even salmon)
½ onion
1 egg
1 tablespoon cracked black pepper
½ tablespoon sea salt
2 cups matzo meal
¾ cup olive oil
1) Grate the onion and combine it with the fish, egg, pepper and salt, and 3 tablespoons of the matzo meal.
2) Form the mixture into small balls, each about the size of a lemon. Roll each of these in the remaining matzo meal, creating an even coating.
3) Fill a pan with sufficient oil for frying, about ¼-inch deep. Set over a medium-high flame. When a sprinkling of matzo meal sizzles in the oil, add as many patties as will fit without crowding the pan.
4) Fry for 2 minutes on each side, at which point patties should be crisp and golden brown. Check that the fish is cooked all the way through (the center should be white rather than translucent). If not cooked through, continue cooking on lower heat.
5) Serve hot or cold with chrain (horseradish).
Chrain
1 horseradish root
1 beet
1 tablespoon sea salt
¼ cup white vinegar
1). Peel the horseradish and the beet.
2). Either by hand or in a food processor, grate equal parts horseradish root and beet, combine with the remaining ingredients and let sit for at least 15 minutes.
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It's better with some sort of white fish than those nasty pond fish. Need more onion!
British Jews have long traditionally eaten cold fried fish as well as fried gefilte fish (also known as "chopped and fried").
The fish frying tradition comes from the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish communities that were in England before the arrival of Ashkenazim from Central and Eastern Europe. Some even say they invented fish & chips!
Dovid's Fish in Teaneck, NJ sells fried gefilte fish balls, and they're delicious!
This sounds like a dish that southern Jews would have/should have produced or at least pounced upon. Fried is one of the four food groups here in the south, so the joke goes.
And don't all of you NY-ers laugh. Jews have been in the south since Sir Walter Raleigh's expeditions in 1585 (Jewish participant Joachim Ganz was part of that trip).
Savannah's Congregation Mickve Israel (1733) is the second oldest in the US, Charleston's Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim Synagogue (1740s) the fourth oldest in the US and Richmond's Beth Ahabah (1789) the fifth oldest.
Check out Marcy Ferris's southern Jewish cookbook/history called "Matzo Ball Gumbo" (UNC Press). It might have fried gefilte fish in it.
You are seriously discussing the merits of British cooking?
Please. Fried gefilte fish. I'd rather chew my own cud, had I four stomachs...
And the comparison to deep-fried turkey?
I rest my case.
My grandmother use to make that all of the time...it's my favorite way to eat gefilte fish. She was from Brest-Litov, moved to Wales...and then came to Savannah. So...it's not a new dish & it's not native of England. But..it's so good..hot or cold. You can do it with the jarred stuff but it's not the same.
It's good cold on rye bread with catsup....try it!!!!
My grandmother use to make that all of the time...it's my favorite way to eat gefilte fish. She was from Brest-Litov, moved to Wales...and then came to Savannah. So...it's not a new dish & it's not native of England. But..it's so good..hot or cold. You can do it with the jarred stuff but it's not the same.
The only people I know who made homemade gefilte fish in the southern US did not deep fry it. Sounds great; think I'll try it this year.
It doesn'thave to be deep fired...just on each side.........
I am from England and my mother made both kind's she woulld make small balls and fry them and serve cold as a Hors D'oeurves that we dipped in horse radish (krane) I shall make themm for the holidays.
My grandparents came from Klobuck, a small village near Czenstachov, Poland. The one ingredient no real 'chopped and fried fish' would be without, if you had a Polish background, was a little sugar. When I told my Weight Watchers group in Jerusalem, a lot of whom are from the States, they thought I was very strange. However, our leader, Menuchah, pointed out that each rissole was probably 5 points. Oh vey!!!!
Like most North Americans, I had never heard of it when I was served it in the home of Jewish friends in Brazil last year. That is the only way they eat it.
I have always made my own Gefilte Fish the way my mother taught me. It was boiled. This year I think I will try frying it. I only use white fish and that would make it better (I think)
In England fried gefilte fish is generally called fish balls.
Wonderful "secret" recipe -- but hard to believe it could have been so obscure here for so long given its origins: its not as though 'Borat' brought the recipe over! And a mouthwatering photo to boot!
The only use of gefulte fish is as a substrate for chrain. And I don't trust any chrain recipe that doesn't list plutonium as a major ingredient.
That's EXACTLY the recipe my mother made! And always with salmon. Neither she nor my father cared much for the whitefish varieties. Marvelous stuff, that. Who knew it was a secret? Where did she learn this 'secret'? Savannah!
I am from England originally, and of Polish ancestry and fried fish balls, with a little sugar are the only way to go. Even when I was a kid and wouldn't eat fish, I like these. In fact my kids, who don't much like fish, will eat these when we go back. And as said above, these are usually referred to as chopped fish, with whole, cold fish being called fried fish. Sometimes salmon is substituted. When I was a kid, my grandmother took my dog over to her friend's apartment the night before a Jewish holiday, and left alone the dog ate all the fish balls she had left cooling. The friend then had to make salmon fish balls at the last minute as a substitute.
Deep fried gefilte fish sounds amazing! I will definitely have to try that.
Here's another great gefilte fish recipe: http://www.foodea.com/recipes/gefilte-fish#tabs-tabset-3
We ate these in South Africa - but generally with ketchup. I never thought of them as gefilte fish, which we also made for Pesach, but rather we called them 'fish balls'. We made wonderful sweet/sour or curry sauces and made small balls to be snacked on as appetizers. They are delicious.
Ari states mom only made them with salmon. My mom made them too but we always called them salmon patties and the above recipe is what was my mother's basic recipe. I love regular gefilte fish but I will try this fried version with some kind of white fish. I bet my non-Jewish husband will like it better too. He loves my salmon patties.
I'm from England. Traditionally gefilte fish , both boiled and fried varieties was made from a mix of two fishes usually Haddock and Hake although I usually use equal parts of Haddock and Cod.In my family carrot was added to the mix of fish, onion and medium matzo meal. Similarly salmon fish balls can be made using canned salmon either pink or red, onion,carrots, meal and seasoning. These are delicious hot or cold with a mixed salmon ... Yummy.
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