Estonian cuisine is quite unpopular, although the original and delicious dishes form the basis of traditional recipes, as in any other. It is simple, although this epithet should not be confused with the poor, as some believe, because it is not.
For a country with a harsh northern climate, cuisine suggests ease of preparation and satiety.
History reference
Until the mid-twentieth century, Estonians ate and didn’t really very diverse, and the king of any feast was bread. Even the meaning of the word “bread” in Estonian “leib” has the general meaning of “food, edible. “And besides, it was common to feast on salty herring, drink kvass and yogurt and brew beer. Special dish from old times – kama.
Kama is prepared today, already on an industrial scale – for cooking kama ready mix is produced. It includes a mixture of cereals and legumes (pulp of peas, flour from rye grains, pre-fried, crushed oats and barley). Like cereal for breakfast, kama is poured with milk or consumed with curdled milk. Oatmeal jelly was also widespread, who drank with milk or butter.
Estonians’ lifestyle forced them to have breakfast and lunch in the field, so simple snacks were just a way to maintain energy and saturate, but to eat with taste they, as a rule, sat down in the evening. Therefore, dinner was the most important meal. Usually, the peasants ate bread with herring during the day, and dined with bean soup. Porridge from cereals and flour (for satiety) in the diet were also not uncommon.
In 1861, the abolition of serfdom entailed a change situations in the diet, because now there is the opportunity to cook hot food and for lunch. From now on, lunch has become a traditional main taking food.
Estonians considered sausages a festive dish. Filling them with grits came to a method for making black pudding.
Jelly traditionally prepared for weddings, family ceremonies dedicated to newborn ritual family members the attribute was barley porridge or pancakes.
Since he appeared in the fields in potatoes, on tables he replaced many cereals. The potato was called second bread.
The twentieth century was the impetus in the industrial sense, the economy, recipes from other regions began to make up the main diet of Estonians and, although they were borrowed from the Germans, Russians, Scandinavians and Poles, recipes took root in everyday of life. We enriched the Estonian cuisine with salads and pastes, canning.
Estonian cuisine today
Estonian cuisine is practical and there is nothing exquisite for its dishes. was used, only that which gave the earth and life, was revered and was used. Giving credit: dairy products on the table Estonians of the highest quality, today are actively exported to other European countries.
Lean meat products, bacon, fish dishes, vegetables (cabbage, rutabaga), legumes and potatoes make up the diet of Estonians rather regularly, but especially noteworthy is the combination inconceivable ingredients (e.g. potatoes in pastry shops products, milk with peas and fish in one dish) affects imagination.
The technology of cooking with Estonians is peculiarly built. They preferred for a long time boiled food, and fried dishes came to them from neighboring countries from which recipes were borrowed cooking dishes. But Estonians are used instead traditional frying in oil replace cooking technology frying meat, vegetables, mushrooms in milk with sour cream or using milk and flour. A hard crust does not work, the dish does not has a smell of oil.
Cooked dishes have cooking features that are very interesting. and unusual. Products are boiled in water, in milk, in kvass, mixture milk and sour cream, egg and milk mixture.
Due to the boiling temperature, a distinctive taste and variety of Estonian dishes. Estonians do not like spices and spices. It’s rare when they are used on the table. Often dishes are not at all seasoned with nothing, but for example, fresh dill is served to the herring, the paprika is flavored with marjoram, cottage cheese with caraway seeds, meat soups – parsley and celery.
Cold dishes are a very common trend, like everyone the Baltic states. It includes sepik – black or gray bread, salty, pickled fish, herring with sour cream and boiled potatoes, smoked herring, kama, boiled ham, bacon, rye-potato roll or potato salad, butter, steep eggs, milk, yogurt. Speaking of Estonian jellied meat, it is prepared only from one type of meat, from the heads and tails of a cow or a pig. Knuckle legs are not used, but the tongue is laid.
As for the hot dishes in Estonian cuisine, this is a big a variety of soups based on milk, (milk-cereal, milk-dough, milk-vegetable, milk-fish, milk-mushroom, milk and egg, milk and beer soups). Separate branch in making milk-based soups also contains dairy products in cooking recipe. Non-dairy soups are meat and vegetable recipes using potatoes, cabbage and beans. For satiety and pieces of smoked pork fat are added to the soups offal for the brew, a special aroma is obtained from inclusion in the soup smoked lamb, ham, corned beef or smoked bacon.
Of course, as in any northern country, cooking in Estonia rich in fish dishes. Common fish species such as flounder, tear, eel, pike, ruff, vendace, participate in cooking fish and milk soups, with the addition of cabbage. Second fish dishes even include small fish and herring in casseroles. Sometimes they are enriched with dill and fat.
Great variety in fish cooking methods (hot smoking, drying, drying, salt) distinguishes Estonian cuisine. By the way, dried and dried fish is also used for soups.
Among meat products, Estonians revered lean pork, veal, lamb, smoked corned beef. Poultry and beef not very popular, even less often cooked goose or game.
Among the cooking technologies, slow-cooking meat gives a very special taste of meat. It is being prepared in a large volume in thick-walled cast iron dishes with a little water. AT in the oven or on charcoal “oven meat” is filled with a full taste, clean meat flavor (that’s where the lack of spices justifies itself!). Him served cold, with boiled potatoes or other vegetables, sometimes they are combined into an independent dish with milk sauce.
Vegetables are a popular food among Estonians, especially if the recipe there is oil, sour cream, milk, cream, sometimes added and fat. Desserts are also based on curd products, cream and jelly beans, thick from rhubarb, apples, lingonberries, cranberries are very tasty and useful.
Here are some recipes for classic Estonian cuisine.
Estonian Milk and Cereal Soup
- barley groats 3/4 cup,
- potatoes 4-5 pcs.,
- milk 1.5 l
- oil 1 tbsp. spoon.
After boiling the cereal until half cooked, add the potatoes and cook until readiness, then pour milk, boil, salt, flavor oil.
Rutabaga milk and vegetable soup
- milk 2 l
- buckwheat or pearl barley 0.5 cup,
- swede,
- potatoes 5 pcs.,
- butter 2 tbsp. spoons
- dill 2 tsp
- caraway seeds 0.5 tsp.
Boil the cereals until half cooked, add the rutabaga, chopped, salt, after 10 minutes add potatoes, caraway seeds and cook until readiness, then pour milk, boil, flavor with butter, sprinkle with fresh chopped dill.
Potato piglets
- lean pork 0.5 kg
- mashed potatoes 1-1.5 kg,
- eggs 2 pcs
- sour cream 1 cup,
- 3/4 cup milk
- rye or wheat flour and semolina 2-3 tbsp. spoons
- butter 1 tbsp. spoon.
Cut the pork into slices 1 cm thick, fry in a pan, put in mashed potato and roll up the bun, coat it beaten egg, roll in flour or semolina, bake in oven, and then serve with sour cream when serving.
Herring in sour cream
- herring 2-3 pcs. weak salting
- onions 1-2 pcs.,
- dill 0.5 cups,
- sour cream 1 cup,
- milk 1 cup.
After cleaning the herring, divide the fillet into two halves, soak in milk (10-12 h), then cut into slices 1-1.5 cm wide and in put one layer on a dish. Top put sliced thin rings onion, pour thick sour cream and sprinkle with finely chopped fresh dill. Boiled potatoes are suitable as a side dish.
Fish casserole in pastry
Dough:
- rye flour 0.5 kg
- water 1 cup
- yeast 30 g
- caraway seeds 2 tsp
Toppings:
- fish fillet 0.5 kg and smoked pork fat 100 g
- herring (fillet) 0.5 kg fillet and salted pork fat 100 g
Knead the dough, let it go, roll it 1 cm thick. Put pinch the filling in several layers, shaping the loaf oval, coat the surface with cold milk. Bake with temperature of 150-160 degrees Celsius in the oven (it should be preheated well) for 45 min – 1 hour.
Tip: a good and tasty combination with smoked bacon gives meat river fish.
Pulp porridge
- rutabaga 2 pcs.,
- onion 1-2 pcs.,
- 1.5 cup milk
- flour 1 tbsp. spoon,
- oil 1 tbsp. spoon.
Boil rutabaga in water, mash it, add to it fried onions in salt, salt, pour milk and heat in for 5-7 minutes, stirring.
Milk and Vegetable Mix
- potatoes 1 kg
- carrots 4,
- rutabaga 1,
- milk 2 l
- flour 2 tsp.,
- butter 1 tbsp. l
Cut large vegetables into cubes and simmer in a pan almost to the finished state, so that the water practically evaporates. Having diluted flour in milk, pour vegetables with this mixture, boil 5-10 min, salt, stir with oil.
