| CATEGORY | CUISINE | TAG | YIELD | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seafood, Dairy, Eggs | Polish | Fish, Holiday, Polish, Usenet | 6 | Servings |
INGREDIENTS
| 2 | Carrots | |
| 2 | Celery stalks | |
| 1 | Parsley root | |
| 1 | Onion, quartered | |
| 5 | Peppercorns | |
| 1 | Bay leaf | |
| 2 | t | Salt |
| 6 | c | Water |
| 2 | lb | Fish fillets |
| carp sole pike | ||
| or similar fillets | ||
| 3 | T | Butter |
| 3 | T | Flour |
| 3/4 | c | Horseradish, prepared |
| cream-style | ||
| 1 | t | Sugar |
| 1/4 | t | Salt |
| 2/3 | c | Sour cream |
| 2 | Eggs, hard-cooked | |
| peeled and sieved |
INSTRUCTIONS
Combine vegetables, dry seasonings and water in a saucepan or pot.
Bring to a boil; simmer 20 minutes, then strain. Cook fish in the
strained vegetable stock 6 to 10 minutes, or until fish flakes easily.
Remove fish from stock. Arrange on serving platter and cover with
plastic wrap. Chill. Strain fish stock and reserve 3/4 cup for
horseradish sauce; cool. For horseradish sauce, melt the butter in a
saucepan, then blend in flour until smooth, making what the French
would call a roux. Add the cooked fish stock gradually, stirring
constantly. Cook and stir until the sauce boils and becomes thick and
smooth. Remove from heat and stir in horseradish, sugar, salt, sour
cream and eggs. Cool for 15 minutes. Pour the horseradish sauce over
the chilled fish and garnish with shredded lettuce. NOTES Fish in
horseradish sauce -- This recipe is the first of the 12 dishes that
make up the traditional Polish Christmas-eve meal, which is eaten
after sundown on Christmas eve. The Polish word for Christmas eve is
Wigilia (pronounced VI-gee-lee-ah). Its root is like the English
vigil: waiting for Christ to be born. At the end of the Wigilia meal
the family goes off to midnight mass at church. There are usually 12
dishes in a Wigilia meal to symbolize the 12 apostles, though some
families serve 13 because they include Christ in their count. The meal
starts when the first star can be seen; this symbolizes the star of
Bethlehem. Although The Wigilia is meatless (Advent, the season of
penance, continues until midnight), it is still festive and delicious.
The tradition of Wigilia, though centuries old, is still current in
Poland. There is no fixed set of rules for what the 12 (or 13) dishes
must be; the items in the meal change somewhat according to location
and availability of ingredients. Nevertheless, all of the dishes are
traditional, and in addition there are many traditions for the serving
of the meal. For example, some people place straw under the tablecloth
to symbolize the manger in which Christ was born. Most families set an
extra place, for the stranger who might be passing by. This is my
family's traditional Wigilia meal: : Fish in horseradish sauce :
Pike Polish style : Pickled beets : Pickled herring in sour cream :
Stewed sauerkraut with mushrooms : Christmas eve kutia : Almond soup
: Noodles with poppy seed and raisins : Poppy-seed rolls : Christmas
bread : Baked apples with red wine : Marzipan : 12-fruit compote
With this first recipe you will notice a similarity with my last name.
Now you know a word of Polish (namely chrzan = horseradish i.e. hot
stuff). : Difficulty: moderate. : Time: 1 hour. : Precision:
approximate measurement OK. Experiment. : Original recipe passed down
through the generations and translated from Polish into English (with
a few mods) by Edward Chrzanowski : MFCF, University of Waterloo,
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada : echrzanowski@watmath.waterloo.edu or
{ihnp4,allegra,utzoo}!watmath!echrzanowski : Copyright (C) 1986 USENET
Community Trust From Gemini's MASSIVE MealMaster collection at
www.synapse.com/~gemini
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Nutrition (calculated from recipe ingredients)
----------------------------------------------
Calories: 540
Calories From Fat: 316
Total Fat: 35.5g
Cholesterol: 255.6mg
Sodium: 1207mg
Potassium: 1074.6mg
Carbohydrates: 13.8g
Fiber: 2.5g
Sugar: 6.7g
Protein: 40.4g