How To Make Homemade Gefilte Fish

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homemade gefilte fish

Gefilte fish is one of the most famous traditional Jewish recipes.  Classic gefilte fish is made out of the fish patties that are simmered in the fish stock with onions and carrots.  Gefilte fish is served cold, and it goes perfectly with the spicy horseradish.  Make the gefilte fish the day before you plan on serving it, so it has time to become refrigerator-cold.

Gefilte fish recipe has fish stock as one of the ingredients.  Check the stock section of your supermarket, and if they don’t have fish stock, check the bouillion cubes section – they might have Knorr Fish Stock cubes. Also, Whole Foods usually carries fish stock.  If you can’t find fish stock, you can use store-bought vegetable stock instead – I have made gefilte fish with vegetable stock, and it tasted great!

Gefilte fish is the classic recipe for Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) and Passover.  The recipe below is the authentic Jewish homemade Gefilte fish recipe that tastes outstanding.

Homemade Gefilte Fish Recipe

Ingredients For Gefilte Fish

  • 2 lbs of fish fillets (1 lb of rainbow trout and 1 lb of cod, or you can also use white fish or tilapia)
  • 5 onions
  • 2 carrots
  • 1 egg
  • 1 cup of flour
  • 1 package (16 oz) store-bought fish stock (you can also use vegetable stock instead)
  • 1 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp pepper
  • 2 tbsp oil

Instructions How To Make Gefilte Fish

  1. Chop 2 of the onions. Heat 1 tbsp of the oil in a non-stick frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the 2 chopped onions and reduce heat to medium. Cook, stirring periodically, for 10 minutes.
  2. Put the fish (leave the skin on) and the fried onions in the food processor fitted with a steel blade and process until everything is finely chopped (it should have the texture similar to ground meat).
  3. Put the fish mixture in a bowl. Add raw egg, salt and pepper. Mix until combined.
  4. Put the flour on a large plate.
  5. Heat 1 tbsp of the oil in a non-stick frying pan (you will need 2 frying pans if you want to fit all the patties at once, if using 2 frying pans, use 1 tbsp of oil in each pan). Form the fish mixture into patties. The fish mixture is very sticky, so if it sticks to your hands too much, wet your hands with cold water before forming the patties – it should help with the sticking. Dip the fish patties in the flour on both sides and put on a frying pan.
  6. Cook the fish patties for 3 minutes on one side, then flip and cook for 3 minutes on another side, or until golden-brown on each side. Remove from heat.
  7. Chop the remaining 3 onions. Peel the carrots and slice them into thin rounds. Put 1/3 of the onions on the bottom of a non-stick pot. Put half of the fish patties on top of the onions, then put half of the carrots on top of the fish and put half of the remaining onions on top of the carrots. Put the rest of the fish patties in the pot, then put the remaining onions and carrots on top. Add enough fish stock to cover the fish patties (if you don’t have enough fish stock, add water).
  8. Bring the pot with gefilte fish to a boil. Reduce heat to the lowest simmer, cover and simmer the gefilte fish for 1.5 hours.
  9. Let the gefilte fish cool down and refrigerate it. Serve the gefilte fish the next day, with horseradish.

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