I am WAY BEHIND on the updates, but if you follow me on Facebook or on Instagram you will know that there has been (as I am sure for most of us) a lot going on - and December whizzed by in the blink of an eye! I am not usually one to set resolutions because let us face it, I either don't get them done, or I get discouraged and no longer want to aim for something. Rather I place loose ideals of what I think would be a nice thing to accomplish and if I don't get it done, I'm not hard on myself, I enjoy the journey. I digress. Last recipe I mentioned that the aunties and I were going to try a classic traditional Polish Christmas Eve dish, 'Polish Greek Style Fish' courtesy of The Polish Housewife, Lois Britton. I was also lucky enough to have my sou chef (my step-dad) back a second time, which was going to make the cooking and documenting process a lot easier (you really need to try taking pictures each step of cooking - it truly is an art form of the highest degree 😜 ).
My husband and I are not huge fish fans (mostly because in the mid-west
it can be difficult to get good quality fresh fish). However, in the
spirit of getting in touch with my Polish Roots and continuing on these
cooking adventures, I was willing to give it a shot! Now, it is important to note that through all the blogs and internet searching that I have combed through I have not been able to find a specific origin of the recipe. The name is misleading and one thing I have read is that the dish is a Polish dish that is traditionally served on Christmas Eve and that there really isn't anything glaringly Greek about it. It is assumed that the name, which has been carried for hundreds of years, relates to the cooking method. According to "Polish Your Kitchen" blog, " Greeks, due to the geographical location, eat a lot of fish and
seafood, a lot of times prepared and served with stewed vegetables in
season". We may never know the true origins of the dish, but becoming a Polish household staple over hundreds of years is good enough for me to consider this a "must try" on our culinary exploration through our heritage and family history.
The first step was - MIS EN PLACE! Getting all our ingredients gathered and the vegetables cleaned and prepped for the shredding process. I personally have not used a lot of parsnips in my cooking thus far in my life, so I was really surprised to find the wax coating over it. They do it to help preserve the root vegetable, so that was an interesting task for me - first time I felt like I was cleaning a candle just to cook. Once the wax was removed, as best it could be, I used a veggie peeler to remove the skins from the parsnip and the carrots. Next, I snapped off the ends and de-threaded the celery.
You can use a grater, or a food processor, to grate down the vegetables, however I used my Pampered Chef Quick Food Prep grater because it does a phenomenal job with little hassle and it is easy to clean. I was able to grate the carrots, parsnip, and celery in it with almost no hassle (the celery put up a small fight) and have it mixed all together in the Food Prep container.
To complete our mis en place we needed to also prep the onion and leek. Because my husband doesn't like the texture of cooked onion, we will be substituting onion powder instead (about 1/2 - 1 Tbs onion powder for 1/2 fresh onion called for, or to taste). Only thing left was the leek, which my sous chef expertly into very thin slices.
We combined the shredded vegetables into a sauce pot with the stock, all spice, and bay leaf. The Polish Housewife recommends using vegetable or fish stock, however we only had chicken stock (unsalted) on hand so that is what we used.
Next it was fish preparation time. First we started heating the oil for cooking the fish in a skillet over medium heat. The cod fillets we used were frozen so we let them thaw then padded them dry with paper towel. Dredging was next, with a little bit of flour, and seasoned with salt and pepper.
Once dredged, into the skillet the fish went and we let them cook turning after about 5 minutes, until golden brown and the internal temp reached around 145 degrees. Then we needed to take the fish out of the skillet and place on a paper towel to drain off the excess grease.
To the skillet with the oil the fish had cooked in, we added the leeks and onion powder and sauteed them down until tender. Obviously the fresh onion would have provided probably more juice and required a little bit longer, but we just trusted the ancestors to tell us that it looked right and shut off the heat.
While those were cooking we removed 1/2 cup of the stock from the liquid that had been cooking with the vegetables and added the tomato paste, stirring it together to dilute it; then we added it back into the saucepan with some additional seasonings.
The recipe ends with "add fish to a casserole dish and top with vegetable mixture" however since we weren't exactly serving the dish "family style" at the table for Christmas Eve, we simply plated the fish and topped each plate with the vegetable mixture.
The moment of truth... Will this recipe be a win for the Scrappy Gidget household? The answer... YES! This dish was absolutely delicious the earthy flavors of the vegetable were perfect pairing for the subtle mild cod fish and the fish stayed really moist and was fall apart tender. My husband and I were pleasantly surprised and my aunties were really happy with it as well.
We all are in favor of adding this as one of our contributions to our family recipes! Thanks to Lois Britton for sharing her savory traditional dish, we have yet another recipe that we can share with our future generations of family as we look back on our cooking through family history cooking adventures. Until next time, be happy, blessed, and Merry!
NEXT EPISODE - MINI SERIES: Twelve Days of Christmas - Granny M's Cookies & More! ___________________________________________________________________________________
As mentioned earlier, this recipe was slightly modified (any modifications were mentioned above) from Lois Britton's "The Polish Housewife" blog. As this is not my recipe I do not want to share verbatim here, but instead you can check out and Lois's story and the original recipe at the link below:
https://polishhousewife.com/polish-greek-style-fish/
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