Fish

Appears in

Sephardic Flavors: Jewish Cooking of the Mediterranean

Published 2000

About

Fish holds a central place on the Sephardic table. It is served on Friday night of the Sabbath and is often part of the meatless Thursday dinner as well. A whole fish with head intact is traditionally served for Rosh Hashanah, to commemorate the head, that is, the beginning, of the new year.

The most popular fish preparations are poached, baked or braised with a sauce, or fried. Probably the most common accompanying sauce is agristada. an egg-and-lemon mixture. Today, as in the past, it is a common thickener for sauces in Spain, Italy, Greece, and Turkey, especially those for fish and vegetable dishes. (In the kosher kitchen, however, agristada is also used in place of béchamel, bearre manié. or cream in meat dishes in which dairy products are prohibited.) Usually agristada is assembled in the pan, using the warm fish cooking liquids, but a second version, thickened with cornstarch or flour and served cold like a mayonnaise, is also served. The other classic sauce for fish, especially for dishes that are served cold, is ajada. a garlic mayonnaise that is a relative of aioli.