Mabel Taliaferro
FILLED FISH BALLS
1 3-pound fish (either weak or cod) 3/4 cupful water 1 good-sized onion, minced or grated 1/4 cupful sugar 1 1/2 teaspoonfuls salt I ⅛ teaspoonful pepper 3 eggs 2 tablespoonfuls butter 1⅓ cupfuls ground dry bread-crumbs or cracker-dust Remove skin and bones from the fish and chop flesh very fine. Add the onion and water, make a hole in the center of the fish and add bread crumbs, sugar, seasonings, egg-whites, and melted butter. Chop until very smooth and form into balls containing a generous tablespoonful each. Put the bones and skin into a saucepan, add a second onion sliced and a tablespoonful of extra butter, and drop in the fish balls. Cover with boiling water and simmer for one and a quarter hours. Then remove the balls and strain off the gravy onto the three egg-yolks which have been slightly beaten together with one teaspoonful of sugar. Stir over the heat until thickened, but do not boil it. Pour over fish balls and serve either hot or cold.
This is sweet, Polish-style gefilte fish in its "filled" (stuffed-and-poached) form, thickened at the end with an egg-yolk sauce. Two points carry the dish: the yolk liquid must never come to a boil, and the fish trimmings are the whole basis of the broth, so do not discard them.
- The egg-yolk gravyStrained hot broth poured onto beaten yolks and stirred over heat will scramble the instant it boils. Keep it below about 180F, stir constantly, and pull it off the heat as soon as it coats a spoon.
- Whites in, yolks outThe ingredient list says three eggs, but the method uses only the whites in the fish mixture and reserves all three yolks for the sauce. Separate the eggs before you start.
- WeakfishWeakfish is the Atlantic sea trout, common in eastern markets a century ago and rarely labelled as such now. Any firm, mild white fish works: cod, haddock, pollock, or pike if you want the traditional texture.
- Simmering timeAn hour and a quarter is longer than ground fish needs; the balls will hold together and be fully cooked in 30 to 40 minutes at a bare simmer. The long simmer in the original may also have served to reduce the bone broth to a gelatinous stock.
- The sugarA quarter cup of sugar in a three-pound fish is a distinctly sweet, Warsaw-style seasoning. Cooks used to the savoury Lithuanian version should cut it to a tablespoon or two and add a little extra salt and pepper.
- Cracker-dust"Ground dry bread-crumbs or cracker-dust" means fine plain crumbs, not seasoned crumbs. Matzo meal is the usual substitute.
- ChoppingWhere the original says chop very fine and then chop until smooth, a food processor pulsed in short bursts does the same work. Stop while the mixture is still slightly tacky rather than pasty, or the balls turn dense.
- Yield and servingServe cold with the sauce set to a light jelly, or warm with the sauce still fluid.
Filled fish — gefilte fish — began as a genuinely stuffed dish: the skin of a whole carp or pike was packed with seasoned chopped flesh and poached, a way of stretching expensive fish and, on the Sabbath, of serving it boneless so no one had to pick bones at table. By the time recipes like this one reached American print, the stuffing had migrated out of the skin and into free-standing balls or patties, though the name stuck. The sweet seasoning and the egg-yolk gravy poured over point to a Polish rather than a Lithuanian household; the divide between sweet and peppered gefilte fish is one of the more durable regional arguments in Ashkenazi cooking. Its appearance in a collection of actors' recipes reflects the ordinary fact that early-twentieth-century American theatre drew heavily on Jewish families in New York, and the dishes contributed to such books were domestic ones, made at home and eaten cold the next day.