Forshmak is a typical Jewish dish. It is made from herring, bread and butter, with the addition of mostly apples.
Forshmak is a dish made from either minced meat (Prussian cuisine) or herring fillets (Jewish cuisine). According to culinary logic, it is a snack, and its original German name can literally be translated as “anticipation”, anticipation is the anticipation of a good meal. Meat forshmak can be a hot snack, but herring is always "cold".
Herring forshmak is usually prepared with apple, onion, egg and butter, thoroughly grinding all the ingredients together, so you get something between pate, fish oil and herring salad. However, not every Jewish housewife will agree with me about apples and eggs.
You can often hear that this is a dish of Odessa cuisine, and there is some truth here, but only because there has been a large Jewish community in Odessa for centuries, and herring forshmak is a classic Jewish dish.
Adding "herring pate" to appetizers does not mean at all that it cannot be served at the dinner table with a simple potato side dish - it is possible, and necessary, and it will be very tasty. And as an appetizer, it is most often served on small toasts of black bread.
Here are 2 Jewish forshmak recipes. The first recipe was prepared by a culinary specialist from Odessa, and here the place of residence itself votes for authenticity (however, the ginger root is already pure liberties, even for Odessa). The second recipe for herring forshmak is one of the many variations, it does not contain apples, eggs, but includes a stale loaf.
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes
Servings Per Container: 2 Servings
To prepare herring forshmak, you will need:
To get a delicious tender forshmak, use fatty herring, in my case it will be Norwegian herring. If you come across a very salty fish, soak the cut fillet for 2-3 hours in milk or in a strong infusion of black tea.
To cut the fish into fillets, use a knife to cut the meat along the spine, then use your hands to detach the spine and any visible bones.
The result is two herring fillets that need to be skinned.
We use only sour apples for forshmak (you can take a sour variety, for example, Simirenko, or a not quite ripe apple of any kind). Peel the apple, cut the core and cut the flesh into cubes. After that, you need to immediately sprinkle the apples with lemon juice - this way they will not lose their color and will not make the snack darker.
In a blender bowl, place the fillet pieces, finely chopped onion and apples. You can add a little ginger root to add freshness.
Grind everything with a blender or pass through a meat grinder, then add softened (but not melted) butter, boiled egg white, and beat the mass again with a blender.
As a result, you will get a gentle and airy forshmak. It is almost ready - it remains to salt (if necessary) and add pepper. Transfer the snack to a container and refrigerate overnight.
To serve forshmak, prepare dark bread, cut it into triangles (can be fried in a dry frying pan or in a toaster for a crisp crust).
Take two spoons - they can be used to easily form balls from the foreschmak for a beautiful presentation.
Take a little mass in one spoon.
Take a second spoon, and make lumps of forshmak, transferring it from one to another, like dumplings.
We immediately put the formed forshmak on the toast.
We spread the appetizer on a wide flat plate.
You can decorate a forshmak in different ways: you can decorate the plate itself with fresh or pickled vegetables, or you can put a shrimp or a piece of fish on top of each canapé ..
Grated egg yolk will add brightness to the appetizer. If you will not serve the dish immediately on the table, it is better not to decorate it, but to cover it with cling film and keep it cold.
1. If the texture of the appetizer seems too smooth to you, next time only puree with additional ingredients (apple, onion, egg and butter), and the herring can be chopped.
2. Herring forshmak can be not only an independent dish, but also a filling for salty cakes, sandwiches, pancakes, it can be stuffed with eggs, potatoes.
3. You can experiment a little with the ingredients of the dish. For example, add boiled potatoes or soaked pieces of toasted white bread. You can chop a pickled cucumber, or you can put the onion not raw, but after frying it.
In short - experiment, try and find the recipe that suits your taste best.
Video of Odessa forshmak recipe with apples:
Peel the herring, free it from the bones. Divide the peeled onion into several parts.
It is advisable to cut off the crusts of the loaf.
Cut the loaf pieces into cubes, sprinkle with vinegar. Mince herring fillet, onion and pieces of loaf twice through a meat grinder.
Mix room t butter with minced herring.
Mix the mixture thoroughly with a wooden spoon. Pour in a little vegetable oil and beat (also with a spoon). Continuing to beat, gradually pour in the rest of the vegetable oil. Add baking soda and beat a little more. The herring mixture should become lighter, fluffier and more uniform.
On a note
.
1. Use enamel or plastic dishes.
2. For foreschmak, odorless vegetable oil is recommended.
Herring forshmak is ready to eat. It can be spread on both white and black bread. It is necessary to store forshmak in the refrigerator for no more than 3-4 days (if it survives this period). Due to the fact that it contains vegetable oil, forshmak does not harden much in the cold, so it is very convenient to spread it on bread, even after taking it out of the refrigerator right away.
The classic herring forshmak recipe involves the use of apples, onions, boiled chicken eggs, butter and slices of bread soaked in milk. All of these ingredients are subsequently transformed in a delicious herring pate, which can then be served, spread on black bread.
The word "forshmak" literally translates as "anticipation." Initially, the dish was hot and belonged to Swedish cuisine, but later it migrated to Jewish cuisine, where it became a cold appetizer.
Potatoes are a favorite side dish for salted herring by many, so it is not surprising that such a herring-potato combination is embodied in one of the forshmak variations. This pate turns out to be quite satisfying and, as well as possible, suits as a main course for breakfast.
The tail and head of the herring should not be thrown away. It will help give the pate the look of a real herring when served.
This recipe is far from the classic combination of ingredients, but the finished appetizer turns out to be unusually tender and airy.
The dish can be served by filling tartlets or halves of a hard-boiled chicken egg with it, removing the yolk before stuffing.
You don't need a blender or an electric meat grinder to cook it in Jewish way, a grater and a manual meat grinder will be enough.
This dish is characterized by the addition of strong spices. This is not surprising, since Odessa housewives often used not the highest quality fish for forshmak, but the so-called “rusty” herring, the taste of which had to be hidden with spices. Of course, for cooking it is better to take fresh and fatty fish, and add fresh notes of taste to the usual dish with spices.
Salted herring is good for vodka, which is why forshmak often appears at festive feasts, but on weekdays a slice of black bread, spread with this pate, can add a savory addition to any first or second course. It remains only to choose a recipe forshmak to your liking (or more precisely, to your stomach).
Forshmak- a popular dish of the Soviet era (from the “cheap and cheerful” category) and is still a popular budget snack on the festive table. William Pokhlebkin, in his culinary encyclopedia, described forshmak as “ a cold dish typical of Jewish cuisine”. But forshmak is also widespread in German, Polish, Swedish and Finnish cuisines.
The very word "forshmak" ( Vorschmack) is translated from German as "appetizer", "food before meals", "anticipation". In Northern European cuisines, forshmak is a hot appetizer made from fried meat, herring, eggs and onions. A cold herring appetizer, reminiscent of everyone's favorite forschmak, is traditional for Silesian cuisine and is called Häckerle.
In the book “A Gift to Young Housewives or a Means to Reduce Household Costs” (1861) by Elena Ivanovna Molokhovets, one can find the following phrase: “ When this meat is cooked with bones, use it for forshmak or give it to a servant
”. At the same time, Vladimir Filimonov's famous gastronomic poem Lunch (1837) contains the following lines: “ Here are the oysters of foreign seas, /
Forshmak from kilka and herring - / A gift of German cuisine to us
”. Those. In the Russian cuisine of the 19th century, two variants of forshmak peacefully coexisted - a hot meat appetizer and a cold herring appetizer.
Interesting that meat forshmak, firmly established in Finnish cuisine, was brought there from Poland at the beginning of the 20th century by the legendary Marshal Karl Gustav Mannerheim.
A sophisticated aristocrat and connoisseur of fine cuisine for the first time tried forshmak in the officers' assembly in Warsaw. The marshal liked the dish so much that he brought the recipe to Finland. With the light hand of Mannerheim, a new delicacy called ( Marskin vorschmack), quickly found gourmet fans all over the country. Now Mannerheim's forschmak is one of the hallmarks of Finnish cuisine. It is served in the best restaurants with the obligatory glass of vodka or a glass of light beer. Marskin Vorschmack is also available in canned food.
Marshal's forshmak recipe (Mannerheim's forshmak)
Ingredients:
Fry the minced meat with the onions. Cut the herring fillet into slices. Add herring, garlic, tomato puree, cognac to the minced meat. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Grind the mixture with a blender until smooth.
Pour the resulting mixture with unsalted broth or water until the consistency of a thick sauce (approximately 500 ml).
Pour the mixture into a baking dish and cook in the oven at 160 ° C for about 2 hours until the mixture thickens. If liquid evaporates quickly, add as needed.
Serve hot with baked (boiled) potatoes, pickles, sour cream and pickled beets.
Meat baked forshmak has a ton of recipes. It is prepared from beef, lamb, chicken fillet with the addition of potatoes, mushrooms, cabbage, eggs, and unchanged herring.
Writer and translator Ekaterina Vilmont in her memoir and gastronomic book " Children of the Galaxy, or Nonsense on Vegetable Oil
”Gives his recipe for meat forshmak.
Meat forshmak from Ekaterina Vilmont:
“So, based on three or four people, depending on the appetite of the eaters (you can do it well together). So, we take four hundred grams of boiled lean beef, three or four potatoes, depending on size, two hundred grams of sour cream, one lightly salted herring, not spicy salting, we also need a little butter to coat the frying pan. We pass meat, boiled potatoes and herring through a meat grinder. The herring should be small, if it is still salty, it is better to take a half. Stir all this, adding sour cream, then knead until a dough, pleasant to the touch, is obtained. Try it - it's already delicious! It is important that the taste of the herring is felt somewhere on the horizon, not stronger. If everything is in order and nothing needs to be added, we take a frying pan, preferably cast iron, but you can, in principle, any, even clay or glass, just for some dishes, cast iron is preferable, but, I repeat, if you don’t have one in your house, then take any. Lubricate with butter, put the forshmak dough on it with half a bun, press lightly with your hands and make cuts with a knife, like on cutlets. And put in the oven for forty minutes, until golden brown appears. And immediately on the table, in no case removing from the pan! At worst, apologize to the guests, especially since then they will gladly scrape off the dried crust.
Many of those who have not tried this dish yet said: what disgusting, meat with herring ... But after trying, they literally licked the frying pan. Forshmak is always small. But if suddenly, for some reason, they didn't finish it, then the cold forshmak is also very good, but you can put it in the microwave for a while. But nevertheless, in the heat of the heat, he is much better. "
In Polish and Finnish cuisines, you can find forschmak recipes in which herring is baked along with potatoes.
Ingredients:
Fillet of 1-2 herring
6 medium potatoes
1 onion
2 eggs
2-3 tablespoons of cream
nutmeg, pepper, salt
butter, bread crumbs
Finely chop the herring fillet. Boil potatoes, cut into cubes and sauté in butter. Grate or finely chop the onion and mix with the potatoes and herring. Add 2 eggs, a few tablespoons of cream, 2 tablespoons of butter and, if necessary, a few tablespoons of broth, season and stir. Put the mass in a greased form, sprinkle with bread crumbs and bake for 30 minutes in an oven preheated to 200 ° C.
Herring forshmak(cold appetizer) is traditionally considered a signature Jewish dish, although its origins lie in East Prussian cuisine. It does not contain meat - fish and meat are not allowed to be mixed in a kosher kitchen. Oddly enough, but in traditional Jewish cuisine you will not find the name "forshmak", but there is " Gehakte Goering ”, Which literally means“ chopped herring ”. Gehakte Goering was a favorite dish of the poorest people. For its preparation, we used “ rusty”Herring, which was previously soaked in milk, but more often in strong tea infusion. In the USSR, in a country of total deficit, forshmak came to the court. Dina Rubina, in her story "Babi Wind" (2017), nostalgically recalls dishes popular 30-40 years ago, including forshmak.
Forshmak - well, where without him. It was very popular and should not be classified as a Jewish delicacy. He is also simple, but in a different way: simple and angry, like a tram controller, for his secret lies in the cheapest, democratic herring. She bought it in any dirty store, on the counter on the street, no matter where: the essence of forshmak is not in the herring itself, but in her retinue. For the cheapest proshmandovka soaked in milk and rolled through a meat grinder acquires an exquisite taste of a delicate base for a kind of masterly mix. Everything that the family is rich in today was put into the mix: onions, a bun, an apple ... Do not forget the necessary shades: sugar, vinegar, vegetable oil ... A light and mobilizing snack, it just takes a long time to wash, especially my hands, so personally I didn't particularly like forshmak ”.
Ingredients:
3 fillets of lightly salted herring
1 large onion
3-4 boiled eggs
1/3 brick of white bread
Soak slices of bread without crusts in milk and be sure to wring out so that the forshmak is not liquid. Twist all ingredients in a meat grinder. Add sunflower oil, vinegar and pepper to taste. Stir.
There is no canonical recipe for forshmak. There is a basic set of products and general principles, but almost every housewife is guided by her own taste when preparing this dish. Gastronomic battles are still being fought over a pressing culinary issue - do i need to add an apple to the forshmak? Many categorically reject it. But even among fans of this ingredient, there is no general opinion about the apple variety. The overwhelming majority prefers simirenka. But the legendary actor Kirk Douglas (“Spartacus”), who is also the father of the no less famous Michael Douglas (“Basic Instinct”), prepares forshmak only with Antonovka.
Douglas ForshmakIngredients:
1 large herring fillet
1 onion
2 slices white bread soaked in milk
1 hard boiled egg
1 Antonov apple
Vegetable oil
Grind the herring fillets, chopped onion, egg and bread slices in a blender. Grate the apple and add to the forshmak. Season to taste with vegetable oil, salt and pepper. Serve on toast, garnished with parsley.
Forshmak in Odessa it is distinguished by a special piquancy. Almost every family where it is customary to cook this dish has its own signature recipe. Boris Burda - bard, TV presenter, connoisseur, writer, culinary specialist and, finally, from Odessa - gives the following family recipe for forshmak in Odessa.
Forshmak in Odessa from Boris Burda
“Having separated the fillet from the herring, I will soak it in milk overnight. Grandmother soaked in an old tea brew, but added milk anyway. In general, soak in whatever you want, even in water. If the herring is not very salty, you do not need to soak it at all.
Now boil three eggs, separate the yolks from the whites. Add pepper to the yolks - both ground black and allspice. A teaspoon of mustard, two tablespoons of vinegar (better than apple or grape), two teaspoons of sugar, a quarter of a glass of good vegetable oil, and rub it all well. In the meantime, they soaked half a baton in the same milk with the cut off the crust.
Further, it is mainly a meat grinder that works. We missed the herring, mixed with the yolks, missed it again with two sour apples (Antonovka will be just right), two medium onions, some proteins and soaked bread (don't forget to squeeze). Mix well again.
Now the ikebana itself remains. We put the resulting product in a herring maker, sprinkled with finely chopped green onions and decorated with the rest of the proteins, herbs and whatever you want. ”
There are a wide variety of recipes for this dish. Forshmak is prepared with the addition of sour cucumbers, processed cheese, carrots, cottage cheese, and even without herring at all (?!)... In the book by Larisa Isarova “ Early ripening dishes. Culinary stories”The following recipe is given:
Forshmak without herring.
Boil the cabbage (five minutes). Soak a loaf in milk, turn cabbage, squeezed bread and two hard-boiled eggs through a meat grinder, add vinegar, sugar, salt, vegetable oil. Place in a herring pot, top with fresh onion rings. Sprinkle everything with yolk, ground in vegetable oil and vinegar.
Maybe you will create your own signature recipe for forshmak, which will be passed on in your family from generation to generation.
Today I will talk about such a popular Jewish snack as forshmak. But first, let's figure it out: forshmak in Hebrew what is it? The fact is that a snack of the same name also exists in Prussian cuisine. There, forshmak is a hot appetizer (casserole) made from minced meat or herring.
Translated from German "forshmak" means "anticipation" or "before the taste." In a word - an appetizer. But the most famous forshmak gained thanks to the Jewish cuisine.
Forshmak in Jewish Is a cold appetizer made from chopped herring with the addition of butter, onions, eggs, apples and other ingredients and spices.
DISH HISTORY
Now forshmak is made from selected herring and high-quality butter, but earlier everything was completely different.
It just so happened that the poor and eternally persecuted Jewish people were forced to cook from the products available to them at that time. Most often it was small, rusty and tough herring, which had to be soaked in tea or milk beforehand to soften it. Chopping it and adding a little oil, onion, eggs, stale bread and other products available in the house to the resulting mass, it was possible to somehow feed the family.
It is no exaggeration to say that forshmak is a real culinary encyclopedia of Jewish life in miniature. As a result of which a cheap dish of the poor, having been refined for centuries, has turned into our time into a dish that can rightfully become a decoration of any table.
FORSHMAK JEWISH COOKING RECIPE
Every Jewish family has their own special secret for preparing this snack. Moreover, the set of ingredients and spices can be all varied.
But today I will share a classic (basic) Jewish forshmak recipe. For a snack you will need:
♦ Lightly salted herring - 1 pc.
♦ Boiled eggs - 2 pcs.
♦ Sour apple (medium size) - 1 pc.
♦ Onions (medium size) - 1 pc.
♦ Butter - 100 gr.
♦ Vinegar (apple) - 1 tbsp.
♦ Salt to taste
♦ Black pepper - to taste
♦ Greens (green onions, parsley, dill) - for decoration
♦ Greens, lemon, boiled eggs, olives - to decorate a festive dish
1. The most important thing is to choose high quality slightly salted herring. Sufficiently salted herring must be soaked in milk or black tea for 1 hour.
2. Carefully cut the herring. First, cut off the head and tail, and then, after removing the entrails, separate the fillet from the bones. If the dish is planned to become a decoration of the festive table, then do not throw away the fish head and tail, they will still come in handy.
3. Peel the apple, the husk from the onion, and the boiled eggs from the shell.
4. Cut herring fillet, apple, onion, boiled eggs and butter into small pieces.
5. Pass the prepared ingredients through a meat grinder. It is better not to use a blender, the texture of the mass should remain slightly grainy, otherwise the taste will not be the same.
6. Then pass the resulting mass through a meat grinder again, since once is not enough.
7. Add salt, black pepper and apple cider vinegar to the twisted mixture. Mix everything well, put in a prepared form and decorate with herbs. Forshmak is ready!
8. To decorate the festive dish, you will need a fish head and tail prepared in advance, as well as lemon slices, boiled eggs, olives and herbs.
Due to the presence of vinegar in the recipe, you can store the prepared snack in the refrigerator for 3-4 days.
Forshmak in Jewish style, prepared according to the classic recipe, turns out to be very tender and tasty. Forshmak is traditionally served on black bread. For this, pieces of bread must be lightly fried in a pan without adding oil, or dried in a toaster. Bon Appetit!