Vorschmack, the aperitif spread from the East

I con­tin­ue my tour of Eastern recipes. Vorschmack is emblem­at­ic of Ashkenazi cui­sine, but in real­i­ty it is eat­en on tables through­out Mittel Europa and Russia. Its name, which sim­ply means "aper­i­tif", indi­cates a German ori­gin, and the dish then spread to the East, with vari­a­tions in recipe.

From Fried herring to Vorschmack

The ear­li­est ver­sion of the recipe is said to be a kind of fried her­ring dish, orig­i­nat­ing in Prussia. It is well known that this poor coun­try did not have a great kitchen. It is the Ashkenazim who make a prepa­ra­tion based on ріскlеԁ hеr­rіngѕ in brine and chopped.

Hard-boiled eggs, onions and apple are added. There is a Finnish ver­sion that adds gherkins.

If you want to make it into a pâté, you add bread­crumbs soaked in water and vine­gar to give it consistency.

Vorschmack can be served hot or cold

Depending on the method of prepa­ra­tion or per­son­al taste, this recipe can be eat­en cold, spread on bread or bli­n­is, or hot.

There are even vari­a­tions where the Vorschmack is au gratin. A real cold coun­try dish!

My Moroccanized Vorschmack

In the absence of her­ring, I used anchovies mar­i­nat­ed in oil (the ver­sion where the fish fil­lets are white, not the one where they are coloured, because the taste is too strong.

And I couldn't resist adding small cubes of pre­served lemon to add a lit­tle bit of acid­i­ty to the recipe!

Vorschmack with anchovies

Course: Side dish, Snacks

Cuisine: Ashkenaz, Slavic

Diet: Gluten Free, Halal, , Vegetarian

Price lev­el: 2 — Economical

Difficulty: 2 — Easy

Prep Time: 15 min­utes min­utes

Resting time: 1 hour hour

Total Time: 1 hour hour 15 min­utes min­utes

Servings: 4

Author: La Marmite

Very easy and quick to make, an addic­tive dip.

Print Recipe

Ingredients

• 200 gr Oil anchovies
• ½ Green apple
• ½ Onion
• 1 Malossol
• ½ Preserved Lemon
• 10 cl Fresh cream or sour cream, or mixed with leben
• 1 tea­spoon Honey mus­tard
• 1 pinch Salt
• 1 pinch Pepper

Instructions

Preparing the salad

• Drain the anchovies well, and leave them in a colan­der for ten min­utes, so that they give off as much oil as possible.
• Meanwhile, peel the apple and grate it (with the large holes of the grater).
• Cut the pre­served lemon in half, put one half in the fridge. Remove аll thе рulр to keep only the skin. Cut it into very small pieces.
• Chop the onion half very finely.
• Also cut the mal­os­sols into very small cubes.
• Cut the anchovies into very small pieces too. 

Sauce

• Mix the hon­ey mus­tard with the cream.
• Add salt and pepper.

Assembling and resting

• Cover the sal­ad with the sauce and mix well. Taste and adjust the sea­son­ing if necessary. 
• Leave in the fridge for at least 30 min­utes before serving. 

Notes

Theoretically, vorschmack is made with hеr­rіng mаrіnаtеԁ in oil. You can't find them in Morocco, so until I make my own roll­mops in sea­son, I decid­ed to use anchovies mar­i­nat­ed in oil. They are a bit stronger, but in the same range of taste.