Passover's coming!

You know what that means?

Oh, yes, it's the holiday where we don't eat breadlike products for like, an entire week.

Well, it's not just that...

We also celebrate our ancestors' journey out of Egypt.

Celebrate! Dig out the Manischewitz and gefilte fish!

Oh, those suspects bring an entirely different meaning to the word "suffering." The super-sweet kosher wine that I actually enjoyed as a kid, and the terrifyingly uniform patties of processed fish parts scooped into something that's flavorless but at the same time, totally fishy.

My family ditched the gefilte fish, for all intents and purposes, five or ten years ago when my mother found the following ingenious recipe.

This is my favorite Passover dish ever.

Last year I couldn't find salmon so I had to make do with tuna. I wouldn't be lying if I called it a disappointment. The tuna turned gray and chewy. Salmon retains tenderness and stays a lovely pink when it's done pickling.

That's why this year, I prepared a month in advance, and snapped up my fish as soon as I saw frozen slabs of salmon in the grocery store. Last year I started looking two or three weeks early, but the expected shipment was tied up at customs. Never made it out in time.

I'm posting this recipe now so any followers can have it ready in time for their seders, too... if they're having one on Saturday, at least. The best part about this recipe is that it's big enough to make leftovers, which I snack on for the entire holiday.

As a note, depending if you eat kitniot during Passover or not, be very careful with your pickling spice. It's likely to contain mustard seed, which has been ruled out by some rabbis.

I'd've liked to take photos during the process, but I had raw salmon all over my hands and no one else was home to hold the camera. The only photos that exist are of the finished product.

Preparation was quite a process! The salmon was deboned but was still an entire three-and-a-half pound slab of fish with skin. I skinned it as best I could. Which wasn't very well, but did a good enough job for a full Pyrex dish of two layers of salmon. My mouth's watering in anticipation!

Pickled Salmon

Ingredients:

2 cups white vinegar
1 1/2 cups water
6 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp kosher salt
2 lbs salmon filet, skinned, deboned
2 T. pickling spice
6 bay leaves
2 small onions, sliced 1/4" thick

Directions:

Open the windows and turn on the fans!

Bring water, vinegar, sugar and salt to a boil, then cool completely. (If you don't, it'll cook, not pickle, the salmon when you add it.) Throw the liquid in the freezer for half an hour, or make it in the morning and come back to it a few hours later.

Cut salmon into 1 x 2" pieces. In a non-metallic dish, place a layer of salmon. Sprinkle the spice mix, bay leaves and onions over it. Repeat until all supplies are used up.