The Passover dish was once made of canned tuna: Salt: NPR

The Jewish holiday of Passover is almost imminent and you know what it means. …

It's time to catch the fish.

At this celebration of the Jewish exodus from Egypt, Jews from many countries eat fish balls. Orbs consist of groundfish and various fillers and supplements: bread crumbs or unleavened bread flour, egg, chopped onions and carrots, sugar, salt, pepper, parsley or dill.

Why fish? On the one hand, they are a symbol of fertility.

The dish is also served at traditional Sabbath dinners and other holidays.

"Gefilte" means stuffed, because during the day (in Poland, for example, two hundred years ago), the chef at home reintroduced the ground fish cooked in the skin of the fish for a beautiful presentation on a table. But it was a lot of work! Finally, the fish dish is turned into hand-shaped dumplings, simmered in broth and then chilled until the broth forms a gelatinous bed.

Nowadays, some people make gefilte fish from scratch. We usually use freshwater fish, such as carp or pike, because that's the tradition – it's this type of fish that would have been readily available in landlocked countries. Eastern Europe.

Ask the fishmonger to grind them or do it yourself with a food processor. And then start playing.

Or, if you're not a ball lover, you can buy gefilte fish in a jar. Then, as many home cooks have done, let them simmer in broth and add a special seasoning to be able to declare: "Yes, I've … prepared … the fish. "

You can also buy gefilte fish in a jewish food shop or gourmet shop.

But there is more than one way to peel a fish.

Last year, I was talking with a colleague, Joe Palca, about what we did over the weekend. "I made gefilte fish," I say.

"Oh, my grandmother did it with tuna," said Joe.

My jaw dropped to the feet.

Tuna? From a can?

Yep. That's what she did. "I do not care," Joe tells me, although he can not remember exactly why. He was, he adds, an amateur of non-tuna gefilte fish.

I was a little horrified but also fascinated – how did a cheap tuna box replace the fresh carp (bought very early in the day, bought before the holidays and kept alive in a bathtub before you left?). be shipped and ground) up).

I mean … it's like making a cake with Twinkies!

I launched a Facebook query to see if any of my friends had heard of this practice. They responded with horror: "Never!" And "Good Lord, no!" And from my daughter: "Please do not do that!"

Since I was a journalist, I started my research. I must admit failure in a sense. I did not know who had the idea first: hey, instead of buying fish and handling it, why not open a can of tuna. Or maybe the tuna companies have marketed the recipe to increase their market.

But it was definitely a thing that dates back to the early 1960s when Joe grew up. And I found the fish recipe for gefilte tuna in cookbooks that compiled the recipes of members of synagogue groups and in newspaper articles from the 60s and 70s.

Jeffrey Yoskowitz, an authority on gefilte fish who wrote the book The manifesto of Gefilte Gefilteria, a Jewish food company in New York City, says, "I think it's hilarious and funny and at the same time, I'm not at all surprised" that tuna has made its way into the recipes of gefilte fish. It reminds us that Jewish food "adapts to local methods and ingredients," he says. This testifies to an era in the not-too-distant American past when people were "really convinced that using processed foods in their kitchen would speed things up".

"I'm so curious to try this at one point," he says.

Me too. And I did it. It took about 40 minutes between opening the box of tuna in the supermarket and dropping the beautifully crafted balls into a quivering stock of store-bought broth. The best thing to do is to be able to totally lick your fingers during the production of this version because the fish is not raw! They were a bit like a tuna salad ball without mayo. (I acknowledge that the raw egg is problematic but I took a risk.)

There is a slight quality of tuna in the balls. A hint of tuna and noodle casserole atmosphere. What I liked! Two great comfort foods collide!

But I wanted others to judge. I have therefore served a plate to my NPR colleagues, some of whom were gefilte fish fans and other non-Jews, unfamiliar with the preparation and curious to know many things, especially why they are served cold or at room temperature. Maybe because a) it still had to be refrigerated and b) it's an appetizer. Similar fish, like the Gallic gefilte cousin called the dumplings, can also be served this way.

The verdict of the tasters was mixed. "No, it's not gefilte fish," said one taster. She said there was a bit of a gefilte fish atmosphere and some sort of tuna quality, but in the end, "he does not know what he wants to be."

"The texture was really unattractive, really pasty and almost floury," said my most severe critic.

But some people have been stoked by tuna. "I loved it!" said a Jewish colleague.

An Egyptian-Filipino heritage taster had an interesting idea about the taste and texture: "It tastes like a pasty crab cake – in a good way!" Yay! But the anti-shells rules of Kashruth add me: Oy!

As for Joe Palca, he took a bite and immediately remembered his aversion to his grandmother's version: "Yeah, that's just as bad."

If that interests you, here's what I did, according to a recipe from the Women's League cookbook for conservative Judaism. I would also like to share a more tonic version of a Tuna Passover dish developed by cookbook author Marcia Friedman, a convert to Judaism of Italian origin who serves an Italian fish bread at his Passover meal. She also finds traditional gefilte fish … fishy and sticky.

Zelda's Mock Gefilte Fish In La Tuna

(Note: Even though the recipe uses the word "mock" in the title, it's fish!)

8 cups of water

1 large onion cut into pieces

2 large carrots cut into pieces

2 stalks of celery

1 can of vegetable broth or 1 tablespoon of vegetable broth

2/3 to 1 cup of matzo meal

1 white albacore tuna in box, packed in water, drained

1 egg lightly beaten

2 tablespoons dill, finely chopped

1 teaspoon of salt

½ teaspoon of sugar

Pepper and garlic to taste

Put water in a large pot. Add onion, carrots, celery. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to simmer broth.

Meanwhile, open a can of tuna. Drain.

After about 10 minutes, remove the broth from the carrot and onion pieces with the help of a strainer and put them in the food processor. Coarsely grate.

Add the tuna and the matzoh flour to the robot and mix. (Editor's note: the mix should not be too wet, I would rather vote like a cup of unleavened bread.)

Put the mixture in a bowl. Stir in the lightly beaten egg, dill and seasonings.

With wet hands, pick up the mixture and make balls the size of a big egg.

Carefully lower the balls into the simmering broth.

The original recipe calls for cooking 30 minutes covered and then 30 minutes uncovered. Really, 20 minutes for everyone seemed to be fine.

Peach the balls with a spoon to drain, place on a flat dish. Cool, cover and refrigerate for a few hours or overnight.

Yield: about 14 tuna balls gefilte.

The Polpettone di Tonno by Marcia Friedman

Three 5-ounce boxes of yellowfin tuna, packed in olive oil, drained

1 ½ cups mashed potatoes (about a large red potato)

½ cup canned artichoke hearts finely chopped, well drained (set aside tough leaves)

¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 egg yolks

Cheesecloth: a double layer of about 16 by 16 inches

2 small pieces of kitchen string.

Extra virgin olive oil

1 clove of garlic, minced

½ large sweet onion, minced

1 teaspoon of kosher salt

1 cup of dry white wine

1 lemon

Finely chop the tuna by hand or by the robot. Mix it thoroughly in a bowl with mashed potato, artichoke hearts, pepper and eggs. Break the remaining pieces of fish. The mixture must be cohesive.

Place the gauze on a plate or other surface. Pour the mixture close to one edge of the fabric and shape the tuna into a roll of about 2 ½ inches in diameter and 9 inches long (make sure it is well placed in your dish. cooking). Press the roller well to make sure the mixture is compact and well distributed. Wrap the gauze firmly around her; twist the ends and tie with kitchen string.

In a large, deep pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add garlic and cook, stirring constantly, until garlic is fragrant and begins to brown, 1 to 2 minutes.

Gently place the tuna roll on the onions. Slowly pour the white wine on the roll (not directly into the hot oil). Slowly add water to cover the roll. Simmer gently and cook uncovered for 40 minutes while gently rolling the roll several times.

Using two large spoons or spatulas to support the ends, transfer the tuna roll into a dish. When cold enough to handle, gently remove the gauze. If the roll cracks or separates, reshape it firmly. Cover the dish tightly with foil and refrigerate until overnight.

To serve, leave the tuna roll at room temperature for 10 to 15 minutes. For the Friedman recipe with a green horseradish sauce, click on the link below.

Recipe created and published for the first time on the Jewish culinary experience with a recipe of green horseradish sauce on the side.