1. In a large skillet heat the oil over medium-low heat. Add the 2 finely chopped onions and cook, stirring often, until softened, about 12 minutes. Let the onions cool for 15 minutes. While the onions are cooling, soak the matzos in cold water to cover for 10 minutes. Drain thoroughly, squeeze out the liquid, and crumble the matzo into a paste with your hands.

2. In a food processor, pulse the coarsely chopped raw onion and the chopped carrot until finely minced, and transfer to a large mixing bowl. Working in 4 batches, pulse the whitefish and carp fillets, the sautéed onions, and the matzo until finely ground but not pureed, transferring the finished batches to the bowl with the onion and carrots. Stir in the eggs, water, sugar, 2 teaspoons of salt, and pepper to taste. Blend until the mixture is homogenous and a little sticky. To taste for seasoning, poach or sauté a small fish ball. If the mixture looks too loose to shape, refrigerate it for about an hour, covered with plastic.

3. Preheat the oven to 425°F. with the rack set in the center. Line an 18 by 12-inch metal or foil roasting pan with a piece of foil. If using a whole fish skin with tail attached, lay it out on the foil and stuff with the fish mixture so it resembles a whole fish. With wet hands, shape any leftover mixture into oblong balls. If using a fish head, stuff it with some of the fish mixture, and add to the pan along with the fish balls. If making a loaf with a strip of skin as a decoration (see headnote), shape the fish mixture into a loaf approximately 16 by 6 inches on the foil and lay the skin along the top. Brush the top of the stuffed fish or loaf with a little oil. Bake until the top just begins to color, about 20 minutes.

4. While the fish bakes, bring the fish stock to a simmer. Add enough hot stock to the pan with the fish to come two thirds of the way up the side of the fish. If there is not enough, add a little water. Add the whole carrots to the pan. Reduce the oven temperature to 325°F., cover the top of the pan loosely with foil, and continue braising the fish until set and cooked through, about 45 minutes. Baste it with the poaching liquid once or twice, and turn the fish balls, if using.

5. Allow the fish to cool completely in the liquid, about 3 hours, cover with plastic, and refrigerate overnight. To serve, using two large spatulas, carefully transfer it to a long serving platter, lined with watercress, if desired. Attach the head, if using, to the fish. Cut the carrots into slices, and use to decorate the top of the fish. Serve with horseradish.

^1930s

KOTLETI

Mom’s Russian “Hamburgers”

Kotleti for lunch, kotleti for dinner, kotleti of beef, of pork, of fish, of chicken—even kotleti of minced carrots or beets. The entire USSR pretty much lived on these cheap, delicious fried patties, and when comrades didn’t make them from scratch, they bought them at stores. Back in Moscow, Mom and I harbored a secret passion for the proletarian, six-kopek variety produced by the meat-processing plant named after Stalin’s food supply commissar, Anastas Mikoyan. Inspired by his 1936 trip to America, Mikoyan wanted to copy Yankee burgers in Russia, but somehow the bun got lost in the shuffle and the country got hooked on mass-produced kotleti instead. Deliciously greasy, petite, and with a heavy industrial breading that fried up to a wicked crunch, Mikoyan factory patties could be scarfed down by the dozen. Wild with nostalgia, Mom and I tried a million times to recreate them at home, but no luck: some manufactured treats just can’t be duplicated. So we always reverted back to Mom’s (far more noble) homemade version.

Every ex-Soviet cook has a special trick for making juicy, savory patties. Some add crushed ice, others tuck in pats of butter or mix in a whipped egg white. My mother likes her kotleti Odessa-style (garlicky!), and adds mayo as binding instead of the usual egg, with delightful results. The same formula works with ground turkey or chicken or fish. Buckwheat kasha makes a nostalgic Russian accompaniment. Ditto thin potato batons slowly pan-fried with onions in lots of butter or oil. I love cold kotleti for lunch the next day, with some dense dark bread, hot mustard, and a good crunchy dill pickle.

1. In a mixing bowl, combine the first eight ingredients and blend well into a homogenous mixture. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

2. With wet hands, shape the mixture into oval patties approximately 3½ inches long. Spread bread crumbs on a large plate or a sheet of wax paper. Coat patties in crumbs, flattening them out slightly and pressing down for the crumbs to adhere.

3. In a large skillet heat 2 tablespoons of the oil with a pat of butter until sizzling. Working in batches, fry the kotleti over medium-high heat until golden-brown, about 4 minutes per side. Cover the pan, reduce the heat to low, and fry for another 2 to 3 minutes to cook through. Transfer to a plate lined with paper towels. Repeat with the rest of the patties. Serve at once.

^1940s

KARTOCHKI

Ration Cards

As we started work on the 1940s chapter, Mother and I batted around various menu ideas for the decade. Maybe we’d bake millet, like my grandmother Liza did at the evacuation warehouse in Lenin’s birth town of Ulyanovsk. Or we could improvise wartime “pastries”—a slice of black bread with a barely there dusting of sugar. We even entertained recreating a banquet from the February 1945 Yalta Conference where the “Big Three” and their entourage feasted on quail pilaf and fish in champagne sauce, while the battered country half starved.

In the end, we changed our minds: cooking just didn’t seem right. Instead of a recipe I offer a photo of a ration card book. Place of issue: Leningrad. Date: December 1941, the third month of the terrible Siege, which lasted nine hundred days and claimed around a million lives. Temperatures that winter plunged to minus thirty. There was no heat, no electricity, no running water in the frozen city; sewage pipes burst from the cold; transport stood motionless. Peter the Great’s imperial capital resembled a snow-covered graveyard where emaciated crowds, so many soon to be ghosts, lined up for their ration of bread. By December 1941 the rations had fallen to 250 grams for industrial workers; for all other citizens, 125 grams—barely four ounces of something sticky and damp, adulterated with sawdust and cattle fodder and cellulose. But those 125 grams, those twenty small daily bites gotten with a puny square of paper, were often the difference between survival and death.