Herring Forshmak

Herring forshmak is one of the most famous and simplest Jewish dishes. It is also nice that its main character is a fish, quite accessible to everyone. It has long been salted directly at sea and sent throughout the Russian Empire. Herring, by the way, was traded by the father of Marc Chagall, a man of fine soul and very modest income. Like other Jews, he believed that herring can be present on the table on ordinary days, but by the Holy Saturday it must certainly turn into a forshmak. Indeed, on weekdays, every Jew is an ordinary hard worker, but on Saturday, after a bath and a mikvah, after a solemn evening prayer, he becomes a king, worthy of the best food!

Ingredients

• 3 spicy salted fatty herrings (or slightly smoked)
• 2 medium onions
• 2 sour green apples, preferably Antonovka
• 3-4 feathers of green onions
• 2-3 eggs
• 1/2 tsp mustard
• 1 tbsp. l. vinegar
• salt
• freshly ground black pepper

Directions

1. To prepare forshmak, carefully peel the herring of bones, skin and entrails.
2. Peel and chop the onions. Chop the green onion very finely.
3. Peel one apple from the skin and the seedbox, the other only from the seedbox.
4. In a meat grinder, turn the herring, then onions and apples. Turn the resulting minced meat again.
5. Hard boil the eggs, peel and separate the yolks from the whites.
6. Grind the yolks with vinegar, mustard, salt and pepper, add green onions. Mix the resulting mixture with minced meat and knead well.
7. Mash the proteins with a fork and add to the minced meat.
8. Put the forshmak on a fish-shaped herring, garnish with green onions or parsley.