A Traditional Jewish Recipe Reviewed!
Once again, Bernadette has put together a terrific review series where a number of us make a recipe from a single cookbook for review.
Meet “The Julia Child Of Jewish Cooking!”
I love this choice as I haven’t cooked Jewish food and was eager to try!
Here’s what I found out about the cookbook and Chef Claudia Roden:
“Claudia Roden is the author of several cookbooks. To me, she is the Julia Child of Jewish cooking. She was born to a family of Sephardic Jews in Cairo, educated in Paris and moved to London, where she still lives. Her tome, The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand to New York was the James Beard Foundation’s Cookbook of the Year. It includes more than 800 Ashkenazic (Central and Northern European) and Sephardic (Spanish, Middle Eastern and Portuguese) recipes.
Which led me to this:
I have seen Gelfilte Fish on store shelves my entire life, but never knew how it was used in cooking.
“Gefilte fish” is a traditional Ashkenazic Rosh Hashanah appetizer. It is made with ground carp that is rolled into balls, mixed with matzo meal and beaten eggs, then simmered in boiling water. The traditional condiment is horseradish.
Roden offers an interesting twist with her recipe for Sephardic fish balls in tomato sauce. The dish has roots in Egypt and Morocco – so that is what I am cooking!
Fish Balls in Tomato Sauce
Boulettes de Poisson a la Sauce Tomate
For the sauce:
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 large tomatoes, peeled and chopped
3 tablespoons tomato paste
1 teaspoon sugar, or to taste
1 hot, fresh chili pepper or 1/4 teaspoon cayenne
For the fish balls:
1 pound ground whitefish – I used fresh cod in the foreground and a filet of tilapia as well
4 tablespoons dry white breadcrumbs or matzo meal
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
Good pinch of nutmeg
Salt and pepper
3 tablespoons freshly chopped coriander or Italian parsley
1 lemon, cut in wedges, to serve with the fish balls
Here’s a video showing how I prepared the tomato sauce…
Directions:
First, start the sauce: pan fry the garlic in oil until the aroma rises. Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, sugar, salt and chili pepper or cayenne. Add about 2 cups of water and bring to a boil.
The recipe has a warning about using chili pepper, which calls for adding a chili pepper during this step. I don’t cook with those so I didn’t have an issue, but they do note:
“If you leave the chili pepper in throughout the cooking, the sauce might end up too hot for you, so taste the sauce and remove the pepper when you feel the sauce is hot enough.”
To make the fish balls, I used a mixture of fresh cod and tilapia, as that fish has a bit of sweetness to it. I diced because I didn’t have a grinder and it worked fine.
Mix all the ingredients together and work to a firm paste with your hands.
Here’s another great piece of advice: if you use a food processor to grind the fish, do so very briefly or it can turn into a creamy puree!
Form the mixture into fish balls one at a time in your hand, the size of a small walnut…I found that they formed a solid balls very easily.
Drop them, one by one, into the sauce and simmer for 20 to 25 minutes, turning them over once.
Here is a video showcasing the entire process of making the fish balls:
As you saw, I served mine over pasta, but I could have done rice as well….it worked perfectly to give the sauce something to hang onto!
I loved this dish, and as for the cookbook, I am eager to dive in and try more recipes, like potato latkes and her traditional chicken noodle soup!
In closing, I love to cook from all parts of the world, and all cultures – and since “The Book Of Jewish Food” is also filled with history and culture, I would recommend this highly.
If you want to see more recipes and food stories, you can go to my “all food all the time” website Biteeatrepeat.com – where I have made balls of food before!
If it’s a more traditional meat ball you want, here is the recipe for my favorite of all,, thanks to New York’s legendary Rao’s restaurant!
Thanks again to Bernadette for hosting the cookbook review – she has a great website packed with terrific recipes like this:
See her show-stopping recipe for “Cerchio di Pasta” by clicking here:
You can also see all of her stories, recipes and the other cookbook confidential reviews by signing up at her website here:
I love cooking from different cultures, like the time I tried to make a “Macau Meatloaf!”
This was a deliciously unique dish and you can see the tire recipe here!
If you like what you see, please click on my link and follow this blog as well!
Thank you for following along on my culinary journey. Once again, bravo to Bernadette for this great recipe!
If you like the story, share it with friends on social media! Thanks!
Categories: Bite Eat Swallow, Bite! Eat! Repeat!, Chef memoirs, Cookbooks, Eat This!, Fine Dining, Food, Food Pictures, Food Writing, Recipes, Wacky Food, World's Wildest Food
Bite! Eat! Repeat! 
Love it, this is one of the recipes I chose as well!
Looks delicious! My Romanian grandmother used to make a dish we called fishalle’ that looked like fish balls, but was made of ground chicken. It appears that chicken was more readily available than fish, so they tried to emulate the dish with chicken. It is still my number one comfort food.
I have become a “lover of all meatballs” and love using chicken – healthier and with the right seasonings just as delicious! Thank you for the comment and for reading the story!
The fish balls I’d obviously a great recipe.