Ingredients
- 1 head (about 2 1/2 pounds) green cabbage
- 1/2 cup matzoh meal
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1/2 medium (5 ounces) onion, minced
- 2 pounds whitefish fillets, such as pike, carp, or whitefish, cut into chunks
- 3 eggs, separated
- 1/2 cup chopped Italian parsley
- 2 tablespoons (6 or 7 sprigs) chopped fresh tarragon leaves
- 2 to 3 teaspoons salt
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper
- Cayenne pepper, to taste
- 1 quart fish stock
- 1 medium carrot, peeled and cut into julienne
- 1 medium leek, white part only, cut into julienne
- Homemade Horseradish, recipe follows
Directions
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Blanch the head of cabbage in boiling salted water, about 5 minutes, then place in a basin of cold water. Remove the whole leaves and cut away the tough core. As you peel off the outer leaves, you may have to return the head of cabbage to the boiling water to soften the inner leaves. Dry on a clean towel and reserve.
Place the matzoh meal in a small bowl. Cover with 1 cup of stock and let soak until needed.
In a small skillet, heat the olive oil. Over medium heat, saute the onion until wilted, 4 to 5 minutes. Do not brown. Cool.
In a wooden bowl or on a chopping board, chop the fish fine with a chopper or large knife. Add the matzoh meal with the stock, the cooled onions, 3 egg yolks, the chopped parsley and tarragon, 2 teaspoons of salt, white pepper, and cayenne, and continue to chop until well combined. In a clean, medium bowl, whisk the egg white until firm but not stiff. Stir a little into the fish mixture, then, quickly but gently, and fold in the remaining whites. To test for flavor, bring a little fish stock to a simmer, add a small ball of the fish mixture and cook for about 5 minutes. Taste and correct seasoning.
Heat the remaining fish stock and spoon a little into an 11 by 17-inch baking pan. Divide the fish mixture into 12 portions, about 4 ounces each, and enclose each portion in 1 or 2 cabbage leaves. You will find that when the leaves get smaller, you will have to use 2 leaves to wrap the fish. As each package is formed, place in the prepared baking pan, seam-side down. This size pan holds the 12 packages comfortably. Pour the remaining stock over the fish and top with the julienned carrots and leeks. Cover the pan with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Let cool in the stock and refrigerate until needed.
Presentation: Place 1 package of fish on each of 12 plates, garnishing with some of the julienned carrots and leeks. Serve with homemade horseradish, white or red.*
*To make white horseradish, finely grate peeled fresh horseradish into a small bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate until needed.
*To make red horseradish, boil 1/2 pound red beets until tender. Peel and then finely grate into a medium bowl. Add about 1/2 cup grated horseradish, or to taste, and combine thoroughly. Refrigerate, covered, until needed.
Notes
Note: If you are concerned if the oils or other ingredients in these recipes are suitable for Passover, seek non-dairy substitutes or ingredients that are certified kosher for Passover.
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By etalerman
New York, NY
on April 25, 2011
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I have been looking for a gefilte fish recipe without sugar and this one looks great, HOWEVER, I too looked up Wolfgang's recipe on his own site and indeed he calls for only 1/2 a cup of matzoh meal - NOT 2 cups. Thanks to vanmungo for pointing this out and helping me avoid culinary disaster!
By vanmungo
New York
on April 20, 2011
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BEWARE OF HUGE MISPRINT IN THIS RECIPE!!!!
This recipe calls for 2 cups of matzoh meal. If you compare this to other gefilte fish recipes with a similar amount of fish, you will see matzoh meal amounts on the order of two to four tablespoons. Two cups is way off the charts for 2 pounds of fish and will lead to disaster.
To prove this point, I did a search and found an earlier version of this Puck recipe that was published by The New York Times in 1987--you can find it on Google (FN site policy doesn't allow me to post the link here.
In the 1987 version, there are the same ingredients in the same proportions—except that it calls for ONE HALF of a cup of matzoh meal, not two cups! Two cups as shown in the Food Network version is obviously a misprint—using two cups will lead to a culinary monstrosity, but assuredly nothing resembling gefilte fish!
I hope that the Food Network will correct this soon.
By emione2_12736965
Philadelphia, 78
on March 14, 2010
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I have been making Gefilte fish for too many years to count, first with my mother and now on my own for many years. We use my great grandmother's recipe. Though I admire Wolfgang Puck's cooking I have to say that I don't know how this recipe can be called gefilte fish. I use several different fish, grind the fish together with the onions, use the head (eyes popped and bones and skin along with the onion skins as a base in the bottom of the pot and cook for five hours. To say that this fish can be made in 30 minutes confounds me. How is this possible? It is fish, but not real gefilte fish. As to the writer who feels that Pesach is for food retards, he/she doesn't know what he/she is talking about. Perhaps not how to cook, either. And that canned and bottled fish is pure something, but what it is, I am not sure. If it's fish, that's a surprise. Perhaps it was once near fish.
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