The cuisine of the Mari people is rich and diverse. It is not particularly difficult, but, despite this, the composition and technology of cooking have their own specifics, which distinguishes it from the culinary traditions of other nations.
The abundance of lakes, forests, meadows and rivers in the republic helped create the basis for dishes rich in minerals and healthy vitamins.
Briefly about the main thing
In most recipes of Mari national dishes, honey has found particular use. Its presence in the list of ingredients guarantees that the result will not only taste good, but also have healing properties. Arriving here, be sure to try muyang cookies, muy puro drink, loaf and uyach.
Since potatoes are considered to be "second bread", in the culinary of this nationality it occupies far from the last place. Vegetable serves as the basis for many dishes: pancakes, dumplings, cereals, pies.
A distinctive feature of Mari cuisine is the countless number of meals made from flour and the following types of cereals:
- oatmeal;
- pearl barley;
- buckwheat;
- pea.
Also among the characteristic features of local cooking is the presence of a pronounced salty and sour taste. As for spices and seasonings, they are not particularly keen on them, so the food is not spicy.
Mari national dishes
Recipes and photos of individual dishes will be presented later in the review. Let's start with the soups. The basis of them, as you know, are decoctions. In the kitchen of the Mari El Republic, it is customary to serve broths in a separate cup, and it is necessary to include extractive substances in the composition, which will not only stimulate appetite, but also help the rapid absorption of food. Soups in local cooking are huge, ranging from green cabbage soup and ending with mushroom. But we suggest moving away from the classics and making a sweet "Polan Lem".
For one serving, you need to add 25 g of honey and 20 g of sugar in 85 g of washed viburnum. The ingredients are steamed for 5-10 minutes, and then half a liter of water is poured, boiled for no more than 5-6 minutes, and then filtered through a sieve. The remaining cake is ground, and the peel with bones is thrown away. The resulting syrup is brought to a boil and gradually stirring, 10 g of starch are introduced. By the way, it can be diluted in cooled boiled water, and then sent to syrup. The mixture is again brought to a boil and removed from the heat.
Serve polan lem both in cold and warm form to cheesecakes, liver, breadcrumbs or sweet cake.
Easy-to-cook rutabaga in sour cream is popular among the second Mari national dishes. Take 160 g of peeled and scalded rutabaga, cut it into either cubes or slices and add a small amount of boiled water. When the ingredient is half cooked, add 10 g butter 30 g sour cream and simmer until fully cooked.
Tasty and healthy
To prepare the Mari national dish Kavun Nemyr, take 150 g of peeled fresh pumpkin peeled and sunflower seeds, cut into thin slices, put in 160 ml of hot milk and send to cook. As soon as the liquid boils, add 5 g of sugar, salt a little, enter 50 g of millet. Cook for 15 minutes. The mass will begin to thicken, so prepare a wooden spatula or crush in advance, so that a puree-like consistency forms during stirring. Then cover the pan, reduce heat and simmer until cooked. When serving, be sure to put a slice of butter in the porridge.
Another useful national Mari dish is shul pumyumysh. There is nothing complicated in cooking. It is enough to cut into cubes 100 g of beef, chop the small onion, rinse 130 g of buckwheat. Mix all the ingredients thoroughly, add 200 ml of water, salt and send to the oven. Stew meat porridge until tender.
Coman Melna
Three-layer pancakes are a Mari national dish that is baked in the oven or oven. But modern housewives have moved away from tradition and switched to the modern option - cooking in a pan. Comana melna is usually served with savory sauces and toppings, but as practice shows, they go well with jam, jam or condensed milk.
To prepare 4-6 (depending on the diameter of the pan) Mari pancakes, you need to knead 3 types of dough, and start with the last. Take 2 tbsp. Hercules, mix with 1.5 tbsp. sour cream and set aside for swelling.
Now prepare a cool dough of 1.5 tbsp. rye flour and two eggs. The resulting semi-finished product must be rolled out with a rolling pin.
Another type of pancake dough consists of a glass of oatmeal mixed with 1.5 tbsp of kefir.
When all types of dough are ready, proceed to frying. To do this, pour 2 tbsp in a pan. l vegetable oil and put a thin pancake from rye dough. As soon as its surface heats up, grease it with a second oatmeal dough, so that part of the dough is a little glass and covers the edges of the first pancake, preventing it from drying out further. Cover and wait a few minutes.
Once the "top" is set, you can apply a third layer of hercules. Now it remains to bake pancakes: first 2-3 minutes under the lid, and then turn the pancake over so that the third layer remains below. Cook until rosy, and before serving, the Mari national dish Koman Melna must be smeared with melted butter.
Useful Tips
- If rutabaga or turnip is present in the recipe, then to remove the bitterness, it is necessary to clean the ingredients and blanch them for 5-10 minutes.
- Local housewives are very sensitive to the broths, so it turns out they have transparent. To achieve a similar result, they advise you to first heat it in an open bowl over low heat, but as soon as a boiling point begins, immediately remove it from the stove.
- Potato, being one of the key components of Mari cuisine, also has its own secret of cooking. It is necessary to cook the vegetable over moderate heat. Otherwise, it will fall apart from above, and remain moist inside.
- Before onion, roll it in flour. Thus, the ingredient will not burn and will acquire a golden yellow tint.
- Millet, rice and barley should be washed first in warm water, and then in hot.
And finally
After getting acquainted with the national dishes of Mari cuisine and the secrets of cooking, it's time to move on to something more refreshing, for example, traditional kvass called pura.
The locals drink this drink in the sultry summer and believe that there is nothing more thirsty than beet kvass. To prepare it, take 100 g of rye and soak it in cold water. After swelling, put on a sieve and wait for the excess liquid to drain completely. Put on the screen and hold there until germination. Then send the rye to a pot or cast iron and put in the oven. After stewing, dry rye and grind with a blender or with a meat grinder.
Pour 300 g of dry beets or 240 g of fresh beets with hot water and cook until tender. Drain the broth in a separate bowl, add 2.5 g of dry hops and malt. Cook for 20-30 minutes, strain, cool to 30-35 and introduce 1.5 g of yeast diluted in a warm broth. After the fermentation process, add 75 g of sugar to the kvass.