My mom died last friday night, a little bit after midnight. I’ll probably write something about her, when I’m feeling up to it, but not yet. Being a jewish dad, when I’m depressed, what do I do? I cook.

Last year, for the first time ever, I made homemade gefilte fish for Pesach. If you didn’t grow up Jewish, odds are you’re not familiar with gefilte fish. It’s a traditional ashkenazi (that is, eastern european jewish) dish. It was originally a ground fish mixture cooked inside the body cavity of a fish. It evolved into just the stuffing mixture, simmered in a fish stock. These days, most people just buy it in a jar. If you grew up with it, even out of the jar, it’s a treat; if you didn’t, and you’ve been exposed to it, it looks and smells like dog food.

Honestly, I love the stuff. In general, I’m not a big fan of most traditional Jewish foods. But there’s something about gefilte fish. But even as I enjoy it, I can see the gross side. It’s crazy overprocessed – I mean, come on – it’s fish that will keep, unrefrigerated, for years!

But made fresh, it’s a whole different kettle of fish. This stuff is really good. You’ll definitely recognize the flavor of this as gefilte fish, but it’s a much cleaner flavor. It tastes like fish, not like stale overprocessed fish guts.

So this year, I’m depressed over my mom; after the funeral, I sent my wife out to buy me a bunch of fish, and I made up a batch. This time, I kept notes on how I did it – and it turned out even better than last year.

It’s got a bit of a twist in the recipe. I’m married to a chinese woman, so when the Jewish holidays roll around, I always try to find some way of putting an asian spin on the food, to reflect the nature of our family. So when I cooked the gefilte fish, instead of cooking it in the traditional simple fish broth, I cooked it in dashi. It’s not chinese, but it’s got a lot of flavors that are homey for a chinese person.

So… here’s the recipe for Mark’s homemade salmon dashi gefilte fish!

Ingredients

• 2 whole pike, gutted and cleaned, but with skin, head, and bones
• 2 whole red snapper, gutted and cleaned, but with skin, head and bones
• 2 pounds salmon filet
• 3/4 to 1 cup matzoh meal
• 3 eggs
• salt (to taste)
• 2 sheets of konbu (japanese dried kelp)
• 2 handfulls dried shaved bonito
• 4 or 5 slices of fresh ginger, crushed
• 2 onions
• 2 large carrots

(For the fish for this, you really want the bones, the skins, and the head. If you’ve got a fish market that will fillet it for you, and then give you all of the parts, have them do that. Otherwise, do it yourself. Don’t worry about how well you can fillet it – it’s going to get ground up, so if you do a messy job, it’s not a problem.)

Instructions

1. First thing, you need to make the stock that you’ll eventually cook the gefilte fish in:
   1. If the fish store didn’t fillet the fish for you, you need to remove the filets from the fish, and then remove the skin from the filets.
   2. Put all of the bones, skin, and head into a stock pot.
   3. Cover the fish bones with with water.
   4. Add one onion, and all of the garlic and ginger to the pot.
   5. Heat to a boil, and then simmer for two hours.
   6. Strain out all of the bones, and put the stock back into the pot and bring to a boil.
   7. Add the kombu to the stock, and let it simmer for 30 minutes.
   8. Remove from the heat, and strain out the kombu.
   9. Add the bonito (off the heat), and let it sit for 15 minutes.
   10. Strain out the bonito and any remaining solids.
   11. Add salt to taste.
2. While the stock is simmering, you can get started on the fish:
   1. Cut all of the fish into chunks, and put them through a meat grinder with a coarse blade (or grind them coarsely in batches in best food processor you can get your hands on.
      r.)
   2. Cut the onion and carrots into chunks, and put them through the grinder as well.
   3. Beat the eggs. Fold the eggs and the salt into the ground fish mixture.
   4. Add in maztoh meal gradually, until the mixture holds together.
   5. Refrigerate for two hours.
3. Now you’re ready to cook the gefilte fish!
   1. Heat the stock up to a gentle simmer.
   2. Scoop up the fish into balls containing about two tablespoons of the fish mixture, and roll them into balls.
   3. Add the fish balls into the simmering stock. Don’t overcrowd the pot – add no more than can fit into the pot in a single layer.
   4. Simmer for 10-15 minutes until the fish balls are cooked through.
   5. Remove the balls from the simmering liquid. Repeat until all of the fish is cooked.
   6. Put all the cooked fish balls back into the stock, and refrigerate.