Aristocratic forshmak: classic, Jewish and Soviet style

The finished mincemeat must be placed in the refrigerator to cool the mass, and then placed on a serving dish and garnished with chopped herbs and the freshest cucumbers.

Jewish herring forshmak

Jewish cuisine is not as popular as Italian or French, and it is full of unique and famous dishes.

In the original, the name of the dish sounds like “geakte goering”, i.e. “chopped herring”, and the name “forshmak”, common to everyone since Russian times, means “anticipation”.

Surely, this is exactly what anyone experiences while waiting for this dish.

Products:

3 plump herrings from a barrel

It is strictly not recommended to use ready-made fillets or pieces of herring in oil;

How to cook correctly:

The herring must be carefully cleaned and all bones removed.

It is recommended to soak extremely salted fish in water for about 3 hours. Grind the fish following the instructions.

Look for a good old hand one, in the latter case, chop the food with a knife - this way the fish will be textured and not sticky.

Another unique feature of the real Jewish recipe is the use of not raw, but fried onions.

Softness and a special flavor are imparted by frying in butter, so that the onions “float”.

Grated eggs, potatoes and peeled apples are mixed with minced fish.

Then the browned onion is added there and everything is thoroughly mixed.

The resulting taste is so juicy and unusual that a huge amount of spices is not required: just add a little dark pepper and vinegar (if desired, use lemon juice instead of vinegar).

ADVICE! Don’t overdo it with potatoes, otherwise you’ll end up with an obvious potato salad instead of a unique snack.

It is recommended to serve mincemeat in a herring bowl, garnished with boiled eggs and herbs.

The dish is served as a main dish or as an appetizer with pieces of bread.

Regular “Russian” forshmak

Forshmak, which was common to almost all Russian children from their youth, was made slightly differently, but the most delicious thing was to grease a bun with the freshest forshmak and wash it down with sweet, hot tea.

Ingredients:

• Herring;
• 2 boiled eggs;
• 4 pieces of loaf (can be from yesterday);
• 1 sour apple: “Antonovka” or “snow-white filling”;
• 2 onions;
• 80 grams of butter.

Soak the loaf in milk or water to soften the pieces.

Pass peeled herring fillets, apples, eggs and onions through a meat grinder.

Add the soaked bun to the acquired mass and mix thoroughly.

Salt and pepper are added to taste. After this, add softened butter to the mixture.

Sprinkle the mincemeat laid out on a dish with egg yolk.

In addition to these recipes, there are also versions of the dish with meat and potatoes, chicken, and cottage cheese.

Any of them has a personal taste and is worthy of attention: try any of them and choose your favorite version of mincemeat.

Video dessert

The usual recipe for making mincemeat, there is nothing simpler.

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Jewish forshmak recipe

A warm herring appetizer is a beautiful start to any lunch

• Jewish

I can’t count how many times I’ve tried to cook mincemeat. It turned out to be easier to just forget. Remember making mincemeat until you were in Odessa: tsimmes, caviar, tulle meatballs and mincemeat. I’ve tried Jewish forshmak everywhere, but I’ve been to many places, and not a single one that’s similar, can you imagine? Gambrinus, Sonya raspberry, Compote, Franzol, Dacha, Assol. What I liked most was the appetizer in which the herring was not transformed into “puffed pate” or into the word “spread”, which... I don’t like it.

“Robky Alexander Yakovlevich immediately, without delay, invited the fire inspector to dine with what God sent. On this day, God sent Alexander Yakovlevich for lunch a bottle of bison, home-made mushrooms, minced herring, Ukrainian borscht with first-class meat, chicken with rice and compote of dried apples.”

"The twelve Chairs". Ilf I., Petrov E.

We decided on one thing: we will have Odessa forshmak, or more precisely, Jewish forshmak.

There is also Russian, Prussian, Finnish... but each one has herring added.

Meat forshmak? Yes!

Forshmak in Russian cuisine is prepared from beef, veal, poultry, and game. The appetizer was traditionally prepared from leftovers from yesterday's table and baked in the oven. For example, from hot or boiled meat.

It’s not hard to imagine that eggs are added raw to such mincemeat for binding, so that the dish baked in the molds does not fall apart when serving. If mincemeat is served in the same container in which it was baked, eggs are not added at all to make the dish more tender.

Forshmak in Jewish

Forshmak is a common dish of Ashkenazi Jews. Can you imagine Jewish cuisine without gefilte fish, latkes, forshmak? In Europe, there was always a lot of herring, and due to its low price, herring was present on the Jewish table in various dishes.

It doesn’t matter which Jewish housewife considers her own mincemeat the most delicious, and the recipe authentic, because every Jewish family will tell you how to cook mincemeat for you correctly.

Making mincemeat is a matter of practice and technique; you can change the amount of ingredients to your own taste and find the right proportions of eggs, apples, onions, bread, vinegar or lemon juice, salt and dark pepper.

By the way, in Jewish cuisine they do not combine fish with meat and milk; in other words, soaking a loaf of bread in milk is not allowed.

Forshmak is served at the very beginning of the meal. But who said it? How can you resist when there are crunchy triangles of dark bread in front of you?

“Forshmak is eaten first – for the sake of appetite, that’s why it is called “Forshmak”. You can even enjoy a glass of good, cool vodka with mincemeat. You can also drink forshmak with vodka. It’s better, of course, to have one thing, otherwise you may never get out of this vicious circle. Forshmak is a great thing, and it will be kept in mind, adored and eaten in Odessa even when there are no Jews left in it. Put the rest in the refrigerator and eat it tomorrow if you can bear it. If you can’t wait, take it out of the refrigerator and finish it. You will, like me at the moment, sit later and think: “But I guess I ate too much.” But no regrets – neither do I at the moment.” "Boris Burda treats." Burda B.

Recipe steps

Let's prepare the herring

Cut off the lower part of the belly of the salted herring. Let's take out the insides, remove the membranes, wash them, cut off the tail and head. Let's create a cut along the back. Remove the skin by moving away from the head. Cut the fillet and remove all the bones. If the fish is very salty, then it needs to be soaked in strong tea or milk. Let's chop up the fish (see photo)

Let's prepare the bread

Soak crustless white bread in warm water for 10-15 minutes. Squeeze and add to mincemeat. For serving, cut the dark bread into triangular slices and dry in a frying pan.

Forshmak

Now I will talk about such a popular Jewish snack as forshmak. But first, let's figure it out: Jewish forshmak, what exactly is it? The fact is that a snack with the same name also exists in Prussian cuisine. There, forshmak is a hot appetizer (casserole) made from chopped meat or herring.

Translated from German, “forshmak” means “anticipation” or “before taste.” In a word - a snack. But forshmak gained its greatest fame thanks to specifically Jewish cuisine.

Jewish forshmak is a cool appetizer made from chopped herring with the addition of butter, onions, eggs, apples and other ingredients and spices.

HISTORY OF THE DISH

Currently, mincemeat is prepared from selected herring and high-quality butter, but previously everything was completely different.

It so happened that the poor and eternally persecuted Jewish people were obliged to prepare food from the goods available to them at that time. Most often it was a small, rusty and hard herring, which previously had to be soaked in tea or milk to make it soft. By grinding it and adding a little oil, onions, eggs, stale bread and other goods available in the house to the resulting mass, it was possible to somehow feed the family.

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Without exaggeration, we can say that forshmak is a real culinary encyclopedia of Jewish life in miniature. As a result, an affordable dish of the poor, refined over centuries, has transformed in our time into a dish that can rightfully become the decoration of any table.

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Every Jewish family has its own special secret for making this snack for us. At the same time, the set of ingredients and spices can be quite varied.

But now I will share the traditional (basic) recipe for making mincemeat in Jewish style. For snacks 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
♦ Dark pepper – to taste
♦ Greens (green onions, parsley, dill) – for decoration
♦ Greens, lemon, boiled eggs, olives – for decoration of a festive dish

1. The most important thing is to choose good quality lightly salted herring. Fairly salted herring must be soaked in advance, for 1 hour, in milk or black tea.

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 for a festive table, then do not throw away the fish head and tail, they will still be needed.

3. Peel the apple, peel the onion, and peel the boiled eggs.

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. After that, pass the resulting mass through the meat grinder again, because the first time is not enough.

7. Add salt, dark pepper and apple cider vinegar to the twisted mixture. Mix everything well, place in the prepared pan and garnish with herbs. Forshmak is ready!

8. To decorate the ceremonial dish, a fish head and tail prepared in advance, as well as lemon slices, boiled eggs, olives and herbs, will be useful.

Due to the fact that the recipe contains vinegar, you can store the prepared snack in the refrigerator for 3-4 days.

Jewish forshmak, prepared according to a traditional recipe, turns out very tender and tasty. Mincemeat is usually served on black bread. To do this, pieces of bread need to be lightly fried in a frying pan without adding oil, or dried in a toaster. Bon appetit!

Making mincemeat from herring: a traditional step-by-step recipe

Jewish cuisine is famous for its various unique snacks. One of them is mincemeat, the traditional recipe of which is distinguished by its simplicity.

Ordinary manufacturing secrets

You need to know how to cook mincemeat from herring so that it comes out indescribably tasty. You just need to pay attention to some subtleties. In this case, a homemade snack will be able to compete with any restaurant dish:

1. Selection of fish . Spicy pickled herring is an excellent choice for making fragrant mincemeat. With all this, preference is given to fatty carcass. It is necessary to obtain the freshest fish without foreign odors.
2. Component proportions . As a standard, the ratio of herring to the total mass of the snack should be approximately 1:3. Otherwise, the dish will acquire a specific herring taste.
3. The right mixture . Forshmak should not spill. As a standard, traditional mincemeat must have the thickness of a pate or thick paste. To obtain the correct mixture, you can grind the ingredients through a meat grinder or grind them in a blender bowl.

For those who do not like “oily” dishes, you can cut the herring into small pieces. All other ingredients are crushed through a meat grinder.

When making such food based on a traditional recipe with an apple, almost all housewives choose it. In order for the snack to be tender and airy, it is necessary to use the following types of apples:

• "Antonovka";
• "Simirenko".

A special dish is usually served first at the feast. It is designed to whet the appetite of the guests. Forshmak - a traditional recipe was taken by Jews from oriental cuisine. The main ingredients in the Swedish version of the pate were meat or herring.

The main product of mincemeat was baked with pepper, onions, sour cream or potatoes. But the salted herring snack, which is very popular all over the world, was invented specifically by Jews.

Forshmak - traditional recipe

For production you will need ordinary and affordable ingredients:

• 1 large herring, 2 boiled eggs;
• onion, 10 ml lime juice;
• 1 large sour apple;
• 80 grams of butter, slightly dark ground pepper.

The traditional recipe provides for the following manufacturing steps:

1. The bones are removed from the herring carcass and the skin is carefully removed. Fish fillets are cut into small pieces. The core is removed from the apple and the skin is removed. The fruit is cut into medium-sized pieces.
2. Sprinkle apple slices with lime juice. Otherwise, the pieces of fruit will darken and spoil the appearance of the mincemeat. The onion head is cut into careful cubes.
3. All preparations are placed in a blender. They are ground into a pate mixture. Previously softened butter is added to the resulting mass.
4. The yolks are separated from the whites. Proteins are placed in a dish. The snack is crushed with a blender. If desired, add a little dark ground pepper.
5. The mass is transferred to a container with a lid and placed on one of the refrigerator shelves at night (that is, in the dark) .

A similar variation of production is as popular as the traditional recipe for minced meat made from herring with carrots. It can be changed slightly.

Some housewives prefer to add a small loaf of bread to the dish, previously soaked in milk. This makes this apple dish especially delicious. For freshness, you can add a little ginger root to the pate.

Recipe with potatoes

You can prepare mincemeat according to the traditional recipe with potatoes. They do not put butter in it, thus departing from accepted traditions. When making such a snack, olive or sunflower oil is used.

Vinegar should be replaced with juice squeezed from the freshest lemon. A traditional recipe for herring with butter involves the use of the following ingredients:

• 1 salted herring, 2 boiled potatoes;
• a pair of hard-boiled eggs, 1 large onion;
• small bunch of dill, 4 tbsp. l. olive oil;
• dessert spoon of vinegar.

You can prepare mincemeat from herring according to the traditional step-by-step recipe as follows:

1. First, the fish is cleaned of bones and skin. The herring is cut into large pieces. Carefully peel the eggs, boiled potatoes, and onions. These products are also cut into large slices.
2. Ingredients prepared in advance are passed through a meat grinder. For all this, a small-sized “mesh” is used. Vinegar, olive oil, and carefully chopped dill are added to the mixture. Mix thoroughly.

When making mincemeat, it is better to use refined sunflower oil. When adding unrefined oil, it will acquire a specific smell.

Ceremonial pate with salmon

If desired, you can prepare a tasty and fragrant snack according to a unique recipe. Traditional salmon forshmak cannot be called daily food. This kind of food is mostly prepared for various holidays.

Jewish pate with salmon will become a real decoration of the New Year's table. Due to the addition of reddish caviar, the dish acquires an extraordinary thickness. The snack consists of the following products:

• 800 grams of herring, 450 grams of butter;
• 0.4 kg of hard cheese, 100 grams of reddish caviar;
• a small amount of lime juice, 1 tbsp. l. mustard;
• a little parsley and dill.

First, the skin is removed from the herring. Then the fish is cut into two halves, from which the bones are removed. Salmon and herring, cut into large pieces, are combined with grated cheese and mustard. The resulting mass is scrolled through a meat grinder.

Then you need to grind the butter, which has stood at room temperature for 2-3 hours, into a sour cream mixture. After this, finely chop the greens.

At the final step of the recipe, fish paste, herbs, reddish caviar, and oil are combined. Then you need to add lemon juice to taste, carefully mix all the mincemeat ingredients.

The fragrant snack is served on toast, posts or slices of fresh bread. You can fill shortbread dough “baskets” with pate. The fragrant appetizer is served with various side dishes. In addition, you can wrap it in pancakes.

The pate will look delicious in an attractive salad bowl. To make the forshmak look most presentable, place a wicker basket with different types of bread next to it.

Useful characteristics of herring

Traditional herring forshmak saturates the body with a huge amount of necessary substances. Some of them can be seen in the list below.

1. Selenium
   • slowing down the effects of aging;
   • pronounced antioxidant effect;
   • reducing the level of oxidation goods in the blood (internal environment of the human and animal body) .
2. Vitamin (low molecular weight organic compound of relatively simple structure, necessary for all living things) D
   • strengthening bones;
   • improvement of kidney function.
3. Iodine
   • increasing the elasticity of vascular walls;
   • prevention of the development of diseases of the endocrine system;
   • increased brain activity;
   • reduction of anxiety and irritability.
4. Phosphorus
   • increasing bone strength;
   • memory improvement;
   • maintaining the normal functions of nerve cells (an animal organ that serves to transmit information important for the body to the brain) .

It is not recommended to prepare dishes with salted herring if you have kidney pathologies. Traditional forshmak is not included in the menu if you have hypertension or a pronounced tendency to edema.