Friday, September 26, 2008

Fried Gefelte Fish

This is one of my signature dishes. I'm not sure where the idea came from, but everyone I've told about it or prepared it for has never heard of anything like it.

Purchase the frozen gefelte fish loaf of your choice. Let it defrost for about 20 minutes. You want it soft enough to slice but not totally defrosted. I like Ungar's.

I can usually get 15-18 slices out of a loaf.


Prepare the usual schnitzel set-up. Egg, breading of your choice and a bit of vegetable oil warming in a pan.


When the oil is hot, dip a slice of fish into the egg and then into the breading and then slip into the pan. Turn when browned.


When the second side is browned, evacuate to a draining rig. I like a cooling rack over a paper bag-lined jelly roll pan.


Serve with salads. Even though it wasn't Monday, my girls wanted their muffin tins.



A few reasons I really like this dish is that it tastes fine cold, you can easily make HUGE batches at a time and freeze them and if you don't over cook them then they are still moist after being in the oven or on the platta for Shabbat.

It is also a good dish for people who don't like fish. It was the only fish I could eat when pregnant and I've had children who don't eat fish ask for thirds. In fact, there have only been two guests who haven't eaten this dish. One doesn't like onions and the gefelte fish loaf has onions in it and the other one was allergic to sesame seeds and I had used a breading with sesame seeds.