Hebrew sweet and sour meat, known as esik-flash, is a typical dish of Jewish cuisine. What is the difference between such a menu? Due to the fact that Jews live around the world, their cuisine is borrowed from different nations. It is composed of very interesting, often unexpectedly original dishes containing various products, most often inexpensive and affordable anywhere in the world.
The main purpose of the most popular dishes of Jewish cuisine is to feed tasty and satisfying with a minimum of expenses. Often they are called the food of the poor. Jewish meat, the recipe of which will be described in this article, fully fits this description. Available products, meat and the simplest spices, unexpected toppings, bread, gingerbread, honey or jam make the taste of the dish very interesting.
Hebrew Sweet Meat: Cooking Secrets
The recipe for an esik-flush is like pilaf among Asian peoples. Each family has its own secret of cooking. Therefore, if it turns out that you tried this dish somewhere, but there was "something wrong" in it, do not hesitate, it was so! But this does not mean that the recipe was correct.
"Esik-flash" is translated as "sweet and sour meat." What is not discussed is a meat variety - of course, kosher beef or veal with a small amount of fat and preferably on ribs. And no dairy products, so we do not use butter. Only vegetable or lard is the melted fat of animals.
What to cook? You will need a stewpan with thick walls or a cast iron, because it will take a long time to stew the products.
Cooking meat in Hebrew: the first stage
- Meat first. It must be cut into portioned slices on the ribs or, if not pitted, then about three centimeters in size. Rinse thoroughly and pat dry with a napkin so that the meat immediately begins to fry. Heat the oil in a pan, put the meat, fry until beautiful crust on all sides.
- Now finely chop the onions, chop a few cloves of garlic, take a little dried cloves and two or three peas of black pepper. All this is put to the roasted beef, reduce the heat, cover and leave to obscure a little.
- As soon as the onion gives juice, you can open the lid. Grate the tomato, discarding the peel, and pour it over the meat. Close the lid again and let the ingredients boil now with the tomato. Not for long, a few minutes.
- As soon as the tomato turns into a homogeneous mass, add as much water in the saucepan as will be enough for the meat to be covered with it during boiling. Salt the dish a little. Keep the fire to a minimum, only to leave a slight "gurgle", cover the stewpan with a lid and leave the meat in Jewish stew until ready. It takes an hour and a half. More precisely, it depends on the meat, its variety, age. Add water so that it continues to stew and does not burn.

The second stage, the final
- Open the lid and try the gravy. First, make sure that it is quite acidic. If sourness, to your taste, is not enough, acidify, for example, with lemon or pomegranate juice.
- Now sugar. After all, the meat should turn out to be sweet and sour. As a sweetener, you can use honey. But another way is popular: at the next stage of cooking, sweet honey gingerbread is crushed into gravy, which replaces both honey and spices.
- Gingerbread You can use the usual "Tula". Take the whole gingerbread, chop finely and pour into the gravy. There you need to add brown bread. Borodinsky is often recommended for an even more original flavor. How much bread do you need? Be guided by the resulting density of the dish. Chop the bun into the stewpan and stir. As a result, pulp should turn out, in its consistency resembling thick sour cream. If suddenly too much, dilute with water.
- Cover the dish, leave to stew for a few minutes. Now mix well again. Bread and gingerbread should already finally turn into pulp.
- Check the dish again for sweet and sour. Finally, adjust these parameters the same way: with lemon or pomegranate and honey or sugar.
- Close the lid again and bring the dish to readiness. On a very small fire, it should be extinguished for about 20 minutes.
- While the sauce "reaches", wash and pour boiling water over several pieces of prunes. After 10 minutes, cut them into strips and put in a bowl with a dish. Warm up for another ten minutes. On this dish is ready.
It is possible in a slow cooker
Like any other dish, Jewish meat can be cooked in a slow cooker. For this, the same recipe is suitable. At the extinguishing stage, place the products in the multicooker bowl and turn on the "Extinguishing" mode or the like. Thus, the dish will turn out even more flavorful and you will be able to devote less time to it, a smart crock-pot will control the process for you.
Conclusion
The cooking process may seem complicated due to the large number of steps. In fact, everything is not fast, but really simple and cheap. Jewish meat can be served as an independent dish, because it is very satisfying due to the presence of meat and bread in it. And you can serve with a side dish, which is suitable for anything: potatoes, rice or other cereals.