The Jewish Kitchen (ConranOctopus/Interlink)
BALTIC HERRING SALAD (serves 4-6)
A shtickle pickle is pure poetry - and it rhymes as well. A little pickle, be it herring, gherkin or beetroot, gives a person an appetite. Herrings, in particular, were once workaday fare, so ubiquitous in Eastern Europe that to this day many an Ashkenazi Jew secretly believes that herring isn't fish, it's herring.
This salad probably started off life as a forespice, something to kick-start the tastebuds, the Yiddish equivalent of an amuse-guele, but you could now serve it as a main course with black or rye bread and butter. As for the sour cream - don't stint. Everything tastes better with sour cream.
500g/1lb 2oz jar pickled herrings, drained
2-3 cooked or pickled beetroots, cubed
1 apple, cored and cubed and sprinkled with lemon juice
1-2 pickled cucumbers, diced
2-3 tbsp sour cream or smetana
25g/1oz fresh dill, finely chopped
freshly ground black pepper
Cut the herrings into small pieces and arrange in a serving dish with the beetroot, apple and cucumbers. Just before serving toss gently with the sour cream, dill and pepper.
Many women look like angels until you see them crunching bread and herring.
Yiddish folk saying
MUSHROOM AND BARLEY SOUP (Krupnik)
A comforting, cold-weather soup that can be made with vegetable stock, but really needs the depth of a good chicken or beef broth. In Eastern Europe, home-dried wild mushrooms were part of everyones store-cupboard and do add that essential whiff of the Urals. Apart from the mushrooms and barley, the basic ingredients are onion, carrot and celery - the holy trinity of Yiddish vegetables, you should pardon the expression.
FOR 4-6
A few dried cep mushrooms, soaked in a little water for 10 minutes, drained and chopped. Reserve the liquid.
250g/9oz fresh mushrooms, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
3-4 carrots, chopped
4 sticks celery, chopped
100g/3_oz barley
1 litre chicken or beef stock
1 litre water
a grating of nutmeg
a little chopped, fresh thyme
salt and pepper
fresh dill and parsley, chopped
Put all the ingredients except for the dill and parsley in a big pot (preferably one that your bubbe shlepped all the way from der heim on her back), cover with the stock, water and liquid from the dried mushrooms. Slowly bring to the boil, season and turn the heat down low.
Simmer gently, covered, for about two hours and serve sprinkled with freshly chopped dill and parsley, and rye or black bread.
FRESH SARDINES STUFFED WITH HERBS (for 2)
A Moroccan-Jewish recipe for sardine sandwiches from the excellent Lamalo Restaurant in Antwerp
12 fresh sardines, filleted (about 12cm/5inches long)
25g/1oz fresh parsley, chopped
15g/1/2 oz fresh coriander, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 tbsp rosemary, finely chopped
1 tbsp basil, finely chopped
1 tbsp sweet paprika
1 tsp cumin
100ml/3 fl oz olive oil
flour and oil for frying
Ask the fishmonger to gut the sardines and remove the head. With luck, they may also remove the backbone. If not, it is really not hard to gently pull the spine away from the flesh with your fingers, rather like peeling off a Velcro strip. Flatten out each sardine, rinse well, pat dry and set aside.
Combine the herbs, spices and garlic with the olive oil. Place 1-2 tsp of this stuffing on top of a sardine fillet and cover, sandwich style, with another. Press firmly together. Repeat with the other sardines.
Lightly flour each side of the sardine sandwich.
Shallow-fry the sardines for several minutes on each side until crisp and brown.
Serve with a rocket and tomato salad.
The Talmud says that he who makes it a habit to eat small fish will not suffer from indigestion; even more, small fish make a mans whole body fruitful and virile.
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