Kosher Jewish cuisine smells like garlic, ginger and other spices. There are various salads, thick soups, meat and fish prepared in many ways, and dairy dishes. Recipes for stuffed fish, cholent, cymes are passed down from generation to generation.
Due to the turmoil of history, centuries of wandering and the need to adapt to new conditions, the culinary tradition of the Jewish nation combines elements of many cultures. Mediterranean, Eastern European, Middle Eastern, German and French influences intertwine in it … For centuries, Jews adopted the culinary color of the national cuisines of the countries in which they settled. They borrowed ingredients, modified recipes. In Jewish cuisine, you can find Russian borscht and pancakes, African spicy fish dishes, Asian rice dishes.
Kosher meat means clean
By adopting the culinary customs of other nations, the Jews have always observed religious orders and prohibitions concerning both the choice of products and the style of cooking, which are still of great importance in the daily lives of the followers of Judaism.
Real Jewish cuisine isKosher . A word means in Judaism according to the ritualistic regulations (contained in the Pentateuch), and also pure or the best, appropriate. According to some, kosherness results not only from religious orders, but also from the rational thinking of the prophets, who knew that, for example,meatin combination with milk rots faster, and pork is rich in parasites. Therefore, they forbade eating pork and mixing milk with meat.
The Dietary Code (Kashrut) describes in great detail the "clean" products that can be eaten and the way in which they should be prepared, and the "unclean" products that should not be eaten. Meat is kosher when it comes from an animal that is both cloven-hoofed and ruminating at the same time. They can be calves, oxen, roe deer, deer, sheep, goats, buffaloes, but - importantly - killed in a proper way, with a blessing, 2-3 knife cuts and blood drained before cooking. It is not a ritually pure pig, boar, horse or donkey. Among birds, ducks, chickens, geese, turkeys, pigeons, as well as partridges, quails, pheasants are considered useful.
Ritually clean fish include those that have both scales and fins, e.g. carp, trout, herring or salmon. You can'teat sturgeons, eels or sharks.
Separation of meat and milk
It is important to divide the dishes into meat and dairy (containing milk and its products, e.g. butter, cheese). They must not be prepared or eaten together, because, as the Bible says, "You shall not boil a goat in its mother's milk." This entails equipping the kitchen with 2 sets of cutlery, dishes, cloths, sinks, and ovens. It is forbidden to eat dairy dishes right after meat. The required break is 4-6 hours. Meat after milk can be used, but you need to wait half an hour and rinse your mouth (after eating hard cheese - 6 hours break).
Vegetables, fruit, cereals, dried fruit and eggs are neutral, so they can be combined with meat and dairy products without limits. Before preparing groats, flour, dried fruit and vegetables, you should check them for worms, and in the case of eggs - for traces of blood.
Garlic and ginger always on hand
The uniqueness of Jewish cuisine lies in the fact that although it is limited to what is kosher, it carries a whole range of flavors. There are no hard and fast rules in it. As a result, the dishes are modified to create as many varieties as people prepare them.
There is a lot of fish in Jewish cuisine, including herring - fresh and smoked, beef, chicken, lamb. In addition to onions, carrots and potatoes, there are eggplants, tomatoes (also dried), squashes, and peppers. Jews like to eat legumes - beans, lentils, chickpeas - and dairy products. Their kitchen could not exist without garlic, but there are also a lot of herbs and spices in it - cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger, zatar (herbal mixture).
Traditional cuisine is considered greasy. And this is due to favorite dishes, to which goose, duck or chicken lard is added. Examples include chopped liver fried with onions in chicken lard or goose neck stuffed with chopped onion mixed with goose lard and breadcrumbs, and then cooked in broth or barley soup. Lard can be replaced with oil, only the dish will have a different taste then. In modern cuisine, poultry lard is rarely used, only when required by a recipe. Meat, fish and vegetables are roasted on a wire rack, and olive or oil is used for frying.
Jewish cuisine - simple and nutritious
Jews eat when they are hungry - often, but not much, never to their fill - only during holidays they do not count calories. Breakfast is very important, traditionally dairy (cottage cheese, coffee with milk, muesli with yoghurt, bread) to eat something else soon.
» Snacks
During the day, they eagerly reach for salads and various pastes: vegetable, egg, fish. A favorite snack is the fish saladherring (chopped herring slices mixed with diced onion, pepper, cucumber), baked and then mixed eggplant mousse, seasoned with lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, sesame paste and mayonnaise, and humus - a kind of chickpea paste with herbs, garlic and tahini, served with pita or fresh vegetables. You can buy sweet dough bagels cut in half (first they are steamed and then baked), spongy inside, with a paste of avocado and eggs, or a slice of smoked fish - salmon, halibut or mackerel.
» SoupsJews love thick meat soups (barley soup, broth, borscht, bean soup, cucumber soup), as well as vegetable soups with beans, lentils and pearl barley. They differ from ours in that if they contain meat, they are not seasoned with cream, but with broken yolks, and seasoned with lemon to taste. The soups are served with noodles, placed dumplings, small dumplings fried in oil, dumplings and maca balls. Light vegetable creams (lentil, pumpkin, zucchini) served with pita bread are popular. A separate group is made up of ripe fruit coolers - plums, cherries, currants, peaches - they are a great refreshment in the heat.
» RybneJewish cuisine is famous for its good and varied fish dishes, among which a prominent place is stuffed fish (gefilte fish), a composition of three species of fish, ground and shaped into balls, boiled in vegetable and fish broth, as well as the world-famous carp in jelly with carrots, parsley and onions.
» MeatApart from beef and lamb dishes (steaks, chops, meatballs, stews), poultry is popular - roasted or stewed chickens, ducks, turkeys most often it is served with fruit. The delicacy is chicken liver and goose pipek, i.e. goose or turkey stomachs stewed with onions and garlic, then baked.
» MourneyDumplings dominate among flour dishes ( kreplach) with various fillings, boiled or fried, served as an addition to soups or as a separate dish; pancakes made of eggs, maca flour and sugar, served hot with powdered sugar (bubele); potato pancakes with onions (latkes); pancakes (chremzlach), various pancakes and dumplings. There is also a kugel - a casserole of raw or boiled potatoes, pasta or rice, served separately or with meat; with raisins, cinnamon, orange zest, and vanilla, it tastes great as a dessert.
» DessertsThey are very sweet - creams, puddings, cold and hot puddings, various cakes and cookies usually contain a lot of candied fruit, nuts, marmalade, chocolate. Carrot cake is characteristic of this cuisine,banana cake, carrot casserole, beetroot jam.
On the Sabbath table
In the Jewish tradition, all religious and family celebrations are associated with food. On the Sabbath (the largest Jewish holiday that begins on Friday at sunset and ends on Saturday at dusk and is a time of rest), 3 meals are eaten: Friday evening (after coming from the synagogue), and Saturday noon and evening. At the beginning, the father of the family breaks off and eats a piece of hay, then the rest of the revelers do it. On the Sabbath they eat fish, herring, chopped liver with egg, broth with noodles or dumplings, kugel and obligatory cymes - a sweet fruit and vegetable dish, the name of which has entered the colloquial language as a term for something good, one of a kind.
The Sabbath dish served at noon on Saturday is cholent, a hot dish with a lot of calories. They are prepared on Friday and kept in special pots or in a preheated oven until the next day. It consists of sliced beef, potatoes, carrots, pearl barley, beans, onions and garlic. Sometimes instead of groats, a large dumpling is put inside, other times stuffed chicken necks. The supper is crowned with peas, seasoned with s alt and pepper. It is eaten with the fingers like s alted almonds or nuts. Only religious families celebrate this way, others just have a gala dinner.