Forshmak from herring

Forshmak is a cold dish typical of Jewish cuisine. However, in Germany they prepare their own kind of mincemeat from herring, which is already a hot dish baked in the oven. Also, the peoples of Sweden and Finland consider it their classic recipe for mincemeat. The composition of the ingredients for the snack also varies according to the country of preparation. So, the Jews add butter and sour apple. And the Germans consider boiled beef or veal meat to be an obligatory ingredient along with herring.

Secrets of cooking Jewish forshmak from herring:

Before starting cooking, the herring must be carefully cleaned and cut into clean fillets, however, you can immediately buy a clean fillet of salted herring; if the herring has a strong salty taste, it is customary to soak it in milk, this procedure draws out excess salt and gives the fish pulp additional softness; you can soak herring in ordinary boiled water, and even in strong black tea with milk; after that, the herring needs to be chopped, this can be done by finely chopping it with a knife on a cutting board, passing it through a meat grinder, using a blender or a food processor, turn the salted fish into a pate; in the same way as herring, it is necessary to grind other components of the snack: egg, apple, bread, onion; you can also serve the mincemeat to the table in an ordinary salad bowl, spread it on slices of bread in the form of snack sandwiches, and also lay the mincemeat on a flat plate, giving it the appearance of a fish; you can decorate the mincemeat laid on the dish with fresh herbs, slices of hard-boiled eggs, chopped olives or olives.

The most common recipes are forshmak from herring in Jewish and Odessa style. We invite you to get to know them!

Jewish herring forshmak

There is no Jewish herring forshmak without chilled butter and a fresh apple with a sour taste. For a more pronounced taste of acid, according to the tradition of cooking, even lemon juice is added, which can easily be replaced with ordinary vinegar. As a side dish to this amazing multinational dish, Jews offer boiled potatoes, which, by the way, is the best match for mincemeat.

Taste Info Buffet snacks / Fish and seafood

Ingredients

  • salted herring - 1 pc. (500 g);
  • onion - 170 g;
  • green apple - 170 g;
  • white wheat bread - 50 g;
  • milk - 50 ml;
  • butter - 50 g;
  • lemon juice - to taste;
  • ground black pepper - to taste;
  • greens - for decoration.


How to cook a classic Jewish herring mincemeat

Take a slice of white bread. Be sure to cut off the crust. Place in a deep bowl and fill with milk. Leave for a while so that the bread is saturated with milk and swells. After, squeeze out the milk, and finely crumble the bread with your hands into another bowl. Bread can be used both store-bought and homemade.

Salted herring can be bought at the nearest supermarket or pickled at home. To facilitate the cooking process, ready-made peeled fillets are sold. In our recipe, the herring is whole. She needs to be gutted. First of all, cut open the belly. Remove all the insides along with the black film. Easy to remove with a paper towel. Remove the skin from both sides of the fish. Cut off the head, fins. Rinse the herring well with cold water and dry with a napkin. Separate two fillets from the spinal bone. Use tweezers to remove as many bones as possible. However, if small bones remain, it's okay.

Chop the herring fillet very finely with a sharp knife and place in a deep bowl.

Clean the bulb and rinse it with water. Cut into fairly small pieces. Add to chopped herring.

Add the crushed bread crumbs to the herring mass.

Apple use sour varieties. It should be tight to the touch, without mechanical damage. Rinse, dry with a napkin. Remove the skin and internal seeds. Cut into small pieces. Add to the rest of the ingredients. Take the butter out of the refrigerator ahead of time. It should be soft. Or use the microwave to soften it slightly, but in no case melt it. The butter should be soft, but not too soft. Add oil to herring. Mix all ingredients thoroughly. Drizzle with lemon juice, season with ground black pepper and, if needed, salt. If desired, to obtain a more homogeneous mass, the mincemeat can be crushed with an immersion blender or all the ingredients can be passed through a meat grinder one by one. Get a pate for herring stuffing.

Put the resulting herring mass on a dish, for this you can use silicone molds in the form of a fish. A very nicely designed Jewish snack will come out.

Then decorate your fish with fresh herbs and serve with black bread. Jewish herring forshmak is ready. Bon appetit!

Forshmak from herring in Odessa

It is believed that such a mincemeat came to us from Odessa. Now the recipe has sold out and many housewives are preparing mincemeat with a green apple.

Ingredients:

  • slightly salted herring - 1 pc.;
  • milk - 100 ml;
  • green apple - 1 pc.;
  • onion - 1 pc.;
  • black bread - 100 g.

For decoration:

  • fresh greens;
  • lettuce leaves;
  • olives;
  • walnuts.

Cooking:

  1. From the very beginning, prepare the herring. Gut it by making a neat incision in the belly. Then cut off the head and tail. Rinse them well and leave them on a paper towel so that all the water is glass. To decorate the finished mincemeat in Odessa style, the head and tail of the herring will still be needed.
  2. Then make a longitudinal incision along the back of the fish. Remove the fillet from the vertebral bone. Remove the rib bones. Then place the fillets skin-on on a cutting board. Holding the tail, insert a sharp knife between the skin and flesh. Run the knife along the fillet, cutting off the skin. Now cut off the costal bones along with the black film. Use tweezers to remove any tangible bones.
  3. Rinse the clean fillets in cold water and pat dry with a paper towel. Cut into large pieces.
  4. Pour 50 ml of milk into a bowl and immerse the herring fillet in it for 10-15 minutes.
  5. Soak a piece of black bread in the remaining milk.
  6. Rinse the head of the onion with cold water (so it will not splatter with tearful juice when cutting), and then clean it under running water as well.
  7. Cut the green apple into quarters, cut off the skin and remove the core.
  8. Now start passing the products for the Jewish mincemeat through a meat grinder. Skip the onion first, then the milk-squeezed bread, the apple and the herring.
  9. Stir the resulting paste.
  10. Lay lettuce leaves on a dish and mincemeat on them. Then decorate the head and tail of the herring, as if it were a fish. Arrange fresh herbs and olives on the sides. And on top of the improvised fish, lay out the peeled walnut pieces.