What is the national cuisine, traditional dishes and food of Estonia? What to try in Estonia? Where to try national cuisine in Tallinn

Estonian cuisine is famous for its simplicity and naturalness. Historically, Estonians prepared their main dishes from pork or fish, cabbage, peas and dairy products; practically no spices were used.

Estonian cuisine does not differ in great variety and sophistication, which is due to the limited range of products historically available to residents of Estonia. Estonian cuisine is based on a variety of soups and porridges made from pork and fish (herring) with the addition of barley and pearl barley and vegetables (cabbage, peas, and later potatoes).

A typical breakfast consisted of porridge (barley, barley or oatmeal), sometimes milk, honey or jam were added to the porridge, and more often pork cracklings and butter were added. Each meal was accompanied by rye bread; salted herring was also a frequent guest on the table. For lunch and dinner, cabbage, pea or bean soup was prepared in pork broth.

The festive table was decorated with blood sausage with the addition of cereals, jellied meat and pancakes made from barley flour. The obligatory dishes on the table were dishes made from milk - cottage cheese, cheese and butter. With the advent of potatoes, the list of Estonian dishes has expanded significantly.

Modern national cuisine of Estonia

The modern national cuisine of Estonia is diverse, many dishes are borrowed from other national cuisines - German (sausages), Hungarian (goulash) and Polish (bigos). Estonians still serve:

• Aspic.
• Blood sausage.
• Roast pork and sauerkraut.

For Maslenitsa, Estonians fry pancakes from different types of flour (wheat, buckwheat, oatmeal) with a variety of fillings (lingonberries, caviar, fish, caviar, cottage cheese). Estonian cuisine has expanded with desserts and salads, for example, scones with whipped cream and potato salad are extremely popular.

Various pickles are widespread in Estonian cuisine:

• Pickled tomatoes and pumpkin.
• Salted cucumbers.
• Lecho and tomato paste.

Typical products for Estonian cuisine are milk, cheese, butter and cottage cheese. Recently, yogurt has been added to this list. Dairy products are consumed by Estonians in large quantities.

What to try in Estonia

Most of the dishes worth trying in Estonia contain pork. The first place deservedly goes to the stew of pork, pearl barley and sauerkraut (mulgikapsas) - a fatty, very filling dish that must be eaten with rye bread. The next dish could be pork baked in mashed potatoes (kartulipors) - in many restaurants it is served in portions in the form of small pigs. For fish lovers, Estonian cuisine offers tender smoked trout (suitsukala).

A popular dish among tourists is kama - a mixture of boiled cereals with jam, honey and milk. An excellent dessert would be a bun with marzipan or a marzipan figurine, which can be bought in shops in the center of Tallinn.

Before a gastronomic tour to Estonia, you must take care of obtaining a visa in advance. Read how to do it yourself.

National Estonian desserts and drinks

There are two main desserts in Estonia – onion jam and pepper cookies (piparkook).

Jam was traditionally made from onions with the addition of honey, but now honey is replaced with sugar. Pepper cookies are prepared with the addition of black pepper, cinnamon and ginger, and covered with glaze patterns. These cookies are still popular among Estonians at Christmas.

National drinks include red beer and oatmeal jelly. Red beer is served in almost all traditional Estonian taverns, and the red color is achieved by adding berries. Oatmeal jelly is traditionally prepared from oats by long boiling. Added to oatmeal jelly:

• Berries.
• Milk.

Where to try

Tallinn is famous for its restaurants serving national cuisine. Among the large selection, we can highlight the most interesting and popular ones.

Restaurant MEKK

Restaurant MEKK offers traditional Estonian dishes in an original presentation. In accordance with the history of the country, the menu depends on the time of year - summer and autumn provide a variety of vegetables and fruits, autumn - berries and pickles, winter - meat and preserves.

The menu includes specialties - pork in lingonberry sauce, cake with sea buckthorn and cheese. Home-baked bread and only natural dairy products give the restaurant the status of a cozy and almost homely place.

Address: Suur-Karja 17/19, 10140 Tallinn.

Peppersack Restaurant

Peppersack Restaurant provides the opportunity to try classic Estonian cuisine at its best:

• Pork stewed with sauerkraut.
• Kamu (mixture of cereals with jam or milk).
• Blood sausage.
• Potato salad.

Dishes are prepared from natural Estonian products without special spices - only salt and herbs are added to the dishes. The deliberately simple interior allows you to focus entirely on the food.

Address: Viru 2 / Vana turg 6, Tallinn.

Restaurant Olematu Rüütel

The Olematu Rüütel restaurant is designed in a medieval style. In the restaurant's basement, game meat is roasted over an open fire. The menu delights with romantic names, for example, “Mistress Margaretha’s Weakness,” which hides chicken fillet with cheese, fruit salad and rice. The combination of products in restaurant dishes is unexpected and unusual.

The restaurant also serves traditional dishes - salted herring, pumpkin cream soup and ice cream.

Address: Kiriku Poik 4a, Tallinn.

Cafe Maiasmokk

Cafe Maiasmokk is the oldest not only in Tallinn, but throughout Estonia. The cafe offers a wide selection of desserts and sweets:

• Tender buns with cream.
• Handmade sweets made from natural chocolate.
• A variety of pies and pastries.
• Desserts with marzipan.

In the cafe you can also visit the marzipan room, where the whole history of marzipan is shown. The cafe has preserved its historical interior.

Address: Pikk tänav 16, Kesklinna linnaosa, Tallinn.

National Estonian cuisine may not be distinguished by its sophistication and variety of products, but everyone will find a dish to their liking.

Natural products and familiar cooking methods make Estonian cuisine attractive to Russian tourists.

A small country, its cuisine has a lot to offer. Traditional Estonian dishes are mainly based on meat (pork), potatoes, rye bread and tasty fish.

This was also influenced by nearby regions such as Scandinavia and Russia. Many dishes in Estonia are quite incredible and only adventurers dare to try them. Here is my list of the most interesting dishes that it offers:

Marinated eel

This dish is served cold. It sounds simple, but it is a favorite dish of Estonians. Be careful when you eat because there may be bones that you should eat.

There may also be more fishy flavor than you expect. Give it a try if you're adventurous - you'll love it!

Suite

Suite is one of Estonia's most popular dishes, but most foreigners are too afraid to try it. This is a meat jelly made from boiled pig bones. Sometimes the head and hooves are also boiled along with the bones.

It is usually prepared in large pots so that people can then put it in a jar and take it home. The smell may make you cringe, but just step out of your comfort zone and do it the way the Estonians do it.

Blood sausage

The British call this dish “black pudding” because it is very dark in color. This dish, also known as blood sausage, is a type of sausage that is prepared stuffed with blood and the blood is allowed to cool during the cooking process.

Usually eaten in winter; is a traditional Christmas dish. Typically eaten with cranberry jam and sometimes with butter and sour cream. Sounds awful? Just try it and find out!

Mulgicapsad

This is a dish of pork and stewed cabbage, served with boiled potatoes. It's quite a filling dish and you'll be full faster than you'd expect. Apparently, this is a healthy dish, because it is usually eaten when it is cold outside, because it is a kind of thick soup.

You don’t need to “pull yourself together” to try this dish, so perhaps this is a good start to get acquainted with Estonian dishes.

I hope you can find a dish that you enjoy... Of course, there are foreign dishes to try, but I want you to know about the local quirky dishes too. Enjoy!

They say that Estonian cuisine can be described with just two epithets: simple and hearty. That’s how it is, only there are special dishes in it, the secret of which for the most part lies in unusual combinations of ingredients. For their sake, as well as for the sake of naturalness and originality, which is reflected in every delicacy of local chefs, connoisseurs of delicacies from all over the world come to Estonia.

Story

There is very little information about the development of Estonian cuisine. It is known that it finally took shape in the second half of the 19th century, and before that it was not particularly diverse. The reason for this is the harsh climate of this country and the poor rocky soil. And the way of life of the locals was simple to the point of impossibility: during the day, peasants worked in the fields from sunrise to sunset. Therefore, their main meal was in the evening.

For dinner, the whole family gathered at the table, where the hostess treated everyone to pea or bean soup, porridge made from cereals or flour. The main food products throughout the day remained rye bread, salted herring, yogurt, kvass, and beer for the holidays. And so it was until the abolition of serfdom, when the fields began to be located near the house and it became possible to eat hot food during the day. That’s when the main meal of the day was lunch, and Estonian cuisine itself became more varied.

Somewhere in the middle of the 19th century, Estonians began to grow potatoes and, subsequently, this product replaced cereal dishes, effectively becoming the second bread. Later, as the economy and trade developed, Estonian cuisine also developed, borrowing new ingredients and cooking technologies from its neighbors. At different times, the process of its formation was influenced by German, Swedish, Polish and Russian cuisines. But, despite this, she still managed to preserve her originality and distinctive features, which today are recognizable in almost every Estonian dish.

Peculiarities

It is not so difficult to characterize modern Estonian cuisine, because Estonians are quite conservative when it comes to cooking. For centuries they have not changed their habits:

• to prepare dishes they use mainly the ingredients that the earth gives them;
• are not fond of spices - they are present only in some national dishes in small quantities;
• they are not sophisticated in their cooking methods - Estonian cuisine is rightfully considered “boiled” simply because local housewives rarely resort to other cooking methods. True, they borrowed frying from their neighbors, but in practice they rarely fry food and not in oil, but in milk with sour cream or milk with flour. Needless to say, after such processing it does not acquire the characteristic hard crust.

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Analyzing it in more detail, it can be noted that:

• The cold table occupies a special place in it, however, like all the Balts. In other words, bread, black or gray, smoked herring, herring with sour cream and potatoes, bacon or boiled ham, potato salads, hard-boiled eggs, milk, curdled milk, rolls, etc.
• As for the hot Estonian table, it is represented mainly by milk soups on a fresh basis with cereals, mushrooms, vegetables, eggs, fish, dough and even beer. Why, they even have milk soups with dairy products! Among non-dairy soups, the most popular are potato, meat, pea or cabbage soups with or without smoked lard.
• It is impossible to imagine Estonian cuisine without fish. They love it very much here and prepare soups, main courses, appetizers and casseroles from it. In addition, it is dried, dried, smoked, and salted. It is interesting that in coastal regions they prefer flounder, sprat, herring, and eel, and in eastern regions they prefer pike and vendace.
• As for meat, it seems they don’t really like it here, since Estonian meat products are not particularly original. For their preparation, lean pork, veal or lamb is most often used. Beef, chicken and even game are rare on the local table. Most often, the meat is boiled or baked in a charcoal oven and served with vegetables and milk gravy.
• One cannot fail to mention the true love of Estonians for vegetables. They eat them a lot and often, adding them to soups, fish and meat dishes and even desserts, for example, rhubarb grounds. Traditionally, vegetables are boiled, sometimes additionally ground into a puree and served with milk or butter.
• Desserts include jelly with milk or cottage cheese, thick fruit or berries, boubert, cakes, pancakes with jam, curd cream with jam, and apple casserole. In addition, Estonians hold sweet porridge with whipped cream in high esteem.
• Among the drinks in Estonia, coffee and cocoa are held in high esteem, and tea is less common. Alcohol - beer, mulled wine, liqueurs.

Basic cooking methods:

People who have studied the peculiarities of Estonian cuisine involuntarily get the feeling that each of its dishes is original in its own way. In part, yes, and this is best illustrated by a selection of photos of national delicacies.

Potato pigs are unique balls of fried pork slices, which are rolled in a mixture of milk and mashed potatoes, baked and served with sour cream gravy.

Estonian jellied meat differs from Russian jellied meat in the ingredients used for its preparation. It is made from heads, tails and tongue without legs.

Oven meat is a dish that is boiled in a cast iron pot in a charcoal oven and served with vegetables.

Herring in sour cream is a dish of lightly salted herring, cut into slices and soaked in milk. Served with herbs and sour cream.

Fish casserole in dough is an open pie filled with fish fillet and smoked lard.

Rutabaga porridge - mashed rutabaga with onions and milk.

Bubert - semolina pudding with egg.

Rhubarb compote - rhubarb compote thickened with starch. It resembles jelly, but is prepared differently.

Blood sausages and blood dumplings.

Syyr is a dish made from cottage cheese.

Suitsukala – smoked trout.

Useful properties of Estonian cuisine

Despite the simplicity and richness of local dishes, Estonian cuisine is considered healthy. Simply because it gives due place to vegetables and fruits, as well as fish and cereals. In addition, housewives in Estonia are not fond of cooking, which undoubtedly affects their life, the average length of which here is 77 years.

– a country of medieval cities, ancient castles and monasteries. Russian tourists also relax on the shores of the Baltic Sea, in places where you can see wooden windmills and get lost in juniper thickets.

The Estonian menu consists mainly of simple and hearty fish dishes (herring is especially popular), as well as dishes based on pork, cereals, potatoes, vegetables and baked goods. Meat by-products and a variety of dairy dishes are widely used here; for example, there are more than 20 recipes for milk soups.

Estonians have a special attitude towards soups; they are prepared and consumed willingly: with cereals, peas, fish, bread, berry and even beer soup. The meat for the broth is boiled in one piece, adding potatoes and other vegetables, cereals or pasta. Smoked pork is often added to bean and pea soups.

Estonians also love porridge, and not always from cereals, but from rutabaga, cabbage, and peas, for example. It should be noted that people here prefer boiled or steamed food and prepare a variety of small snacks from fish and other products. The traditional Estonian “cold table” includes jellied meat, pickled herring with sour cream, Rosolie and potato salads, liver pate, pickled pumpkin and cucumbers, rolls stuffed with ham, meatballs with mayonnaise and stuffed eggs.

Spices and seasonings are used sparingly in Estonia; rutabaga is often added when cooking and fresh herbs are respected, and “kastmed” – milk and sour cream gravy – is served with almost every dish.

Among the unusual dishes one can note “kama” - a mixture of flour made from fried grains of rye, peas and barley, doused with milk or curdled milk. Estonians enjoy eating this kind of “peasant food” at home.

Top 10 Estonian dishes

This dish is made from pork and cabbage. The meat is cut into pieces, salted and placed in a cauldron, layered with cabbage. All this is sprinkled with pearl barley, filled with water and boiled. It turns out to be a thick, hearty soup. Served with boiled potatoes. Estonians love to eat mulgicapsad in winter, when it’s cold. It is recommended to start tasting the Estonian menu with this dish, since there is nothing exotic in it for a guest of the country.

Milk-fish soup

Despite the seemingly incompatible products, gourmets consider this soup very tasty. When cooked, each ingredient receives a new property from milk: fish fillet - delicate taste and texture, potatoes - friability, and onions - softness. When serving, the soup is sprinkled with herbs: a mixture of fresh dill and parsley, so the plate looks very attractive.

A dish typical of the Baltic states. Carefully pour a mixture of beaten eggs, beer and sugar into the hot milk, warm it up, stirring constantly. Add diced white bread to the resulting soup and serve chilled.

Tuhlinott

Tukhlinott is prepared from the type of meat that is available. Cut into small pieces, add potato cubes of the same size and onions and cook over low heat. Spices include marjoram and ground black pepper. The end result is a stew-like dish.

Killatuhlid

This dish is prepared from lean pork. Potatoes, sour cream, and salt are added to the meat. Without spices, aromatic herbs, herbs and onions. Killatuhlid is a dish that allows you to feel the true taste of the ingredients: meat, potatoes, sour cream.

Salad "Rosolie" is a very popular salad made from beef, potatoes, beets, lightly salted herring, pickled cucumbers, onions, and apples. Dressed with mayonnaise and sour cream. The taste is reminiscent of both Olivier and herring “under a fur coat”.

Silgud pekiketmes

This is herring in sauce, where the sauce comes first. It is prepared from lard, milk, onions, and spices. The sauce is boiled down and herring fillet is added to it. Be sure to sprinkle with dill.

Silgu vorm

Silgu vorm is also a fish dish, but this time with potatoes. It looks like a layered casserole of potatoes and fish of different varieties with onions. During the preparation of silguvorum, herring, fresh and smoked, herring and other types of fish are used simultaneously.

Blood sausage

The British call this dish “black pudding”. The color of the blood sausage is indeed very dark. Consumed chilled and usually in winter. Blood sausage is popularly prepared for Christmas. Eat with cranberry jam, and sometimes with butter and sour cream.

These buns with whipped cream are prepared for Maslenitsa. Baked from yeast dough. You get these balls, with whipped cream on the cut top of the head. The cut cap is placed directly on the cream and the bun is sprinkled with powder. Sometimes Estonian bakers put a spoonful of sour jam on top of the cream for contrast. Vastlakukel with cranberry jam is especially tasty.

Estonian cuisine will surprise you with the simplicity of preparing dishes and at the same time their satiety, as well as the availability of products. Despite the fact that there is not a huge selection of dishes in Estonia, and the dishes that are prepared can hardly be called exquisite delicacies, the menu of the country’s residents contains dishes from almost all the ingredients necessary to maintain a healthy diet and give the body strength and energy.

The basis of the Estonian diet is simple but nutritious dishes made exclusively from natural products. Dishes consist of meat, fish, dairy products, bread, vegetables (potatoes, cabbage, rutabaga), beans (peas, beans). Among meat products, Estonians give preference to pork, and among fish products - herring and sprat. Blood sausages and liver are popular in Estonia. Among dairy products, Estonian cuisine is rich in cheese, milk, curdled milk, sour cream, and yogurt. Dishes are often supplemented with these ingredients, resulting in dishes with an unusual composition. Dishes in which milk is added to peas and fish are popular. The uniqueness of Estonian culinary traditions lies precisely in the fact that chefs in the country prepare dishes by combining a wide variety of ingredients with each other.

Among all the cooking methods, boiling is the most common. Frying as a heat treatment method is used quite rarely.

A distinctive feature of Estonian national cuisine is the limited use of spices, herbs and herbs. Perhaps the most popular are salt, pepper, marjoram, cumin, less often, but still, cooking is not complete without seasoning with dill, parsley, celery and green onions. Estonians adhere to a strict distribution of seasonings, that is, they do not add everything to each dish at once. For example, cottage cheese is flavored with caraway seeds, fish with dill, blood sausages with marjoram, meat soups with parsley and celery.

Bread occupies a very important place in the Estonian diet; they bake it themselves, purchasing it only on rare occasions.

Estonian dishes are worth trying for lovers of simple but original food. So that you can prepare food at home according to the culinary traditions of Estonia, on our website we offer you step-by-step recipes with photos.

Recipes with step-by-step photos

• Kringel
• Shortbread pie with rhubarb
• Kartuliporss
• Mulgicapsad
• Piparkukas
• Pickled pumpkin

Peculiarities of Estonian national cuisine

Features of the national cuisine of Estonia distinguish it from the cuisine of other countries: the country values ​​uncomplicated preparation, the use of natural products, as well as their nutritional value.

Touching upon the history of the formation of Estonian cuisine, it is worth noting that since ancient times, the main products included in the diet of the residents of the state were fish, meat, vegetables, cereals, and dairy products. By way of life, the bulk of the population were peasants and fishermen, and therefore people could not boast of a lot of free time for preparing amazing delicacies. For this reason, dishes were preferred that could be whipped up and eaten quickly before getting back to work. The tradition of avoiding complex dishes has remained to this day. Also, Estonian cuisine was formed under the influence of the cooking of neighboring countries - Germany, Sweden, Russia. At the same time, Estonia has created its own unique dishes, the analogues of which simply do not exist in other countries.

Traditionally, in Estonian cuisine, foods are practically not fried. They prefer to cook ingredients for dishes, doing this in milk, meat and fish, vegetable broths, and water. As a result of this procedure, the taste of the food acquires peculiar notes, which, out of habit, seem strange to residents of other countries of the world. Tourists are also perplexed when they notice the mixing of seemingly incompatible products, but remain satisfied with the original taste of the dish. An excellent example of such unique dishes is “Kama”. This is the name of oatmeal, made from oats, rye, wheat, barley and other cereals or a mixture thereof, which is served along with yogurt or milk. This dish has a long history and, despite this, the dish has not lost its popularity, because it is in demand among people who adhere to a healthy diet. And this is always relevant for the residents of Estonia. At the present stage, preparing “Kama” is much easier than before, because now you don’t need to grind cereals in a large mortar to make a mixture from them - fortunately, you can easily buy everything you need in the store.

Fish is perhaps one of the most important places in the Estonian diet. The most popular variety is herring. It is used to prepare dishes both for the everyday table and for the holidays. There are a huge number of ways to prepare herring in Estonia, and the dish made from this product always turns out very tasty. Smoked herring is popular, the taste of which is very delicate, and the fish itself turns out to be quite fatty, but at the same time very appetizing. The second place in popularity is occupied by sprat. Trout is slightly less in demand.

Estonian cuisine is distinguished by the presence of many types of bread. The country boasts gray bread known as “Seppik”, traditional barley and rye bread, honey bread, sweet bread with sour notes, and potato bread. Such pastries are an ideal complement to both hot and cold dishes, and are also used in the preparation of many national dishes according to recipes.

In every home you can find sausages made from blood or liver; Estonians decorate the dinner table with meatballs, pork liver pates, nutritious potato salad with stuffed eggs and herring in sour cream sauce. Estonians are fond of jelly called “Kaerakile”, which is cooked on a milk base. All these dishes came to Estonian cuisine from ancient times and do not lose their popularity.

Dairy products play an equally important role in the Estonian diet. Milk, yoghurt, curdled milk, sour cream - the preparation of national dishes is rarely complete without these ingredients. They are used for preparing first courses, for example, milk soups, and second courses, and side dishes, including milk porridges. It is believed that there are about twenty or even more recipes for making soup with milk. Such first dishes are supplemented with fish, mushrooms, vegetables (potatoes, rutabaga, cabbage), and eggs. The peculiarity of the dish is that first of all, all the products are boiled in plain water, reach half-cookedness, and only after that, almost upon completion of cooking, is milk added. The dish is kept on the stove until the dairy product boils along with all the ingredients.

In principle, Estonians love all soups. Whether the first course is vegetable, meat, fish or cereal, every Estonian will certainly try it at least once during the day. Residents of the country give preference to bread soup, barley dish with potatoes, fish dish made from herring and potatoes, and pea dish with pearl barley porridge. Estonia is also famous for such original soups as blueberry and beer.

Meat dishes served as main dishes are prepared in a special way. Traditions have developed so that preference is given to pork. Cooking requires special dishes, the walls of which will be quite thick. The meat is left to simmer in such containers, due to which it becomes tender, juicy and at the same time retains its excellent taste without losing useful substances from its composition. There are many recipes, in addition to boiling, when the meat is baked in the oven. To do this, they take fresh meat products, salted and smoked ones.

One of the most popular meat dishes is jellied meat - “Stilt” in Estonian. In some countries, any meat is poured with broth, which is also mixed together to form a prefabricated meat. In Estonia, they are used separately, without combining beef and pork.

The most common side dish is potatoes, cooked with various products and served in addition to meat or fish dishes. Potatoes are also the main ingredient for preparing some dishes.

Hot dishes are also served with all kinds of gravies, which do not have a sharp or spicy taste due to the fact that spices and bitter seasonings are practically not added. Such gravies are most often prepared from dairy products - milk or sour cream.

Instead of burgers, hot dogs, shawarma and other popular “snack” foods, street kiosks offer a wide selection of blood sausages stuffed with various cereals, sweet treats such as curd cheese, milk chocolate, to which chefs-traders add marzipan, nuts , pieces of dried fruit, marmalade, jelly.

Now a little about the meal schedule. For breakfast in Estonia, it is customary to eat one of the unsweetened porridges with sandwiches. The composition of such “sandwiches” is rye bread, on pieces of which salted or smoked herring cut into slices is laid out. Such sandwiches are replaced with others - fried bread in butter, served with tomato sauce, cheese, eggs or sweets - jam, preserves. An Estonian lunch consists of any kind of soup, which is mandatory, and the choice of a second one - meat stew with vegetables, mashed potatoes, which is also a side dish, baked, stewed, smoked herring, trout, pork knuckle, ribs. Dinner in Estonia also includes dishes made from meat or fish. Sweet-tasting soup is often served as dessert.

So, now you have much more information about the peculiarities of Estonian cuisine, you know what the residents of the country prefer to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Now we will tell you more about this.

Main dishes

Estonia will delight every gourmet with main courses, because, despite the lack of sophistication in terms of food, courses - first, second and appetizers - turn out to be very original and attractive.

Among first courses, soups play a dominant role in the Estonian diet. The most popular are, of course, those brewed with milk. Such dishes taste very unusual, but interesting. The use of the following milk soups is quite common: fish, pea, vegetable, egg, mushroom, milk (that is, those prepared from a mixture of various dairy products - yoghurt, sour cream, cream). All these varieties of the first dish, in addition to the presence of milk in them, are also united by the technology of cooking recipes: first of all, be it vegetables, mushrooms, eggs, fish, peas or another ingredient, they are boiled in water, and when the components are almost ready, milk is added and remove from the stove as soon as the entire composition boils.

There are also soups with a cereal base, which are complemented with flour, dairy products and vegetables. Elementary in terms of preparation and very famous in Estonia are dumpling dishes called “Klimpisuppi”. What is their simplicity? The fact is that the dumplings are simply boiled in milk. The final result is a very tasty and original dish.

Vegetable soups are in demand no less than others. In Estonia, people dine on first courses of cabbage, potatoes, and peas, the peculiarity of which is that smoked lard is added to the food during the cooking process, albeit in small quantities. Not least of all are soups made from meat or fish. It is important to note that most often cooks in restaurants and cafes, and housewives when cooking at home, do not use meat fillet, but offal - liver, heart, ventricles, navels, kidneys. This trend developed because previously the price of meat in Estonia was too high to add it to soups. This tradition has survived to this day.

Second courses are presented with meat and fish. Also, dishes made from these products can be served as snacks, if they are not supplemented with anything special. The fish is dried, smoked and dried. The purpose of smoked fish is to be the main ingredient in recipes for second courses, and dried and dried fish is to complement first courses. It’s hard to imagine Estonian cuisine without herring and sprat. These varieties are the most popular. Based on them, a delicious casserole is prepared, the peculiarity of which is that the fish is placed in pots, simmered, and a sauce of milk, sour cream and eggs is added. Worthy of attention are “Suitsukala” - trout that is smoked, salted-spicy sprat, herring “Kalapirukad”, which is baked in the oven in rye dough, the same fish is stewed and fried.

The wide range of second courses includes dishes made from pork, lamb, veal and offal (kidneys, heads, animal blood). The most common meat is pork. The Estonian menu is rich in options for preparing pork ears, shanks with sauerkraut, and ribs, which are served as a side dish with peas mixed with meat.

The favorite food of Estonians is dishes with blood. What are the national blood sausages worth? We can’t help but mention “Vere Pakeogid” - blood pancakes. Regardless of the frightening name of the dish, it has a unique taste that every resident of Estonia enjoys.

Meat, which is intended for preparing second courses, is boiled either in water, or in soups, or porridges. The side dish for these dishes is boiled vegetables (potatoes, rutabaga, carrots). Jellies known as “Sylty” are very popular in Estonia. Their peculiarity is that they are prepared from lamb, pork and veal, namely from heads and tails. Moreover, it is important that different types of meat are not mixed with each other, but are placed separately.

As you can see, you definitely can’t leave the Estonian dinner table hungry. Main courses of meat, fish and vegetables give a feeling of fullness, saturating the body with strength and energy.

Estonian side dishes

Estonian side dishes are somewhat different from those to which most residents of European countries are accustomed: there is a wide selection of cereals and vegetable dishes. The peculiarity of porridges is that they are cooked from several varieties at once - millet, barley, oats, wheat are added at the same time, and also supplemented with other ingredients - often vegetables. That is, there are cereal, cereal-vegetable or vegetable porridges. Combining several products to obtain one side dish is the most common technology in recipes for preparing additional dishes.

For example, buckwheat is supplemented with a vegetable mixture, and a magnificent, very popular dish is obtained, the combination of pearl barley with cabbage is known as “Mulgicapsad”, mixing pearl barley with potatoes is called “Mulgipuder”. But the dish without which it is simply impossible to imagine the Estonian dinner table is “Kama” - porridge made from rye, oats, barley, peas (as well as other legumes), and flour. This dish is truly unique, because the ingredients cannot be cooked, and the entire composition is simply poured with milk or curdled milk and served.

Vegetable dishes are quite common in Estonia; in particular, most of them are prepared with potatoes. Vegetable products are practically not served as an independent dish. They can be such only in one case - if a variety of porridges are prepared from them. They make pea, cabbage, and rutabaga porridge. Estonians also love vegetables in milk sauce. Potatoes, cabbage, rutabaga are the most popular vegetables. They also use carrots, and in rare cases, perhaps only for making salad, beets are used.

It’s difficult to call side dishes ordinary in Estonia, but this distinctive feature is the highlight of the country. Even if it’s unusual, it’s very tasty, truly authentic.

Pastries and desserts

Pastries and desserts occupy a very important place in the lives of Estonians, because Estonians do not consider a meal complete without eating fragrant buns or delicate cookies with jam.

Just as when preparing main courses and side dishes, Estonian chefs, in the process of implementing recipes for preparing desserts, experiment with ingredients, as a result of which the world is enriched with unique delicacies, which are almost impossible to find a replacement for in other countries.

Of course, here you can enjoy shortbread cookies, sweet cinnamon rolls, jam and all kinds of fruit and berry jams, but these delicacies are not much different from those found in other countries. But sweet soups, the preparation of which are countless, are unlikely to be found anywhere else. A great example of such a delicacy is bread soup. It would seem nothing special, but once you soften stale rye bread, add raisins, sugar and whipped cream to this composition, try the resulting mass and you will understand that this food deserves attention.

Equally popular is berry soup, the base of which can be very diverse - strawberries, lingonberries, blueberries, blueberries, strawberries. This soup is topped with nuts and honey for dessert. For dessert, mousse is also served, consisting of various fruit juices and semolina. Every sweet tooth will not leave such a delicacy without attention.

There are also traditional Christmas cookies, without which the holiday table is considered incomplete. In Estonia they call it “Piperkook”, and it differs from others in that they put a lot of cinnamon in it, and also add ground pepper.

Estonian cuisine surprises with its selection of unusual ingredients for preparing desserts. Only in this country do they make a unique jam, the basis of which is onions. Honey or, alternatively, sugar powder is added to the vegetable.

Fruit and berry casseroles, jelly with whipped cream, traditional sweets with nut, mint, coffee, alcohol (with liqueur, cognac) fillings - and such sweets can be found in Estonia.

Beverages

Drinks are available in a wide range: alcoholic, non-alcoholic – there is something to suit everyone’s taste. It is noteworthy that traditional ones remain in demand no less than foreign ones.

One of the most favorite non-alcoholic drinks is black coffee. They make it moderately strong and, for variety, add lemon, milk and other ingredients to enrich the taste. Since Estonia has a lot of fruits and berries, this country is famous for its juices, compotes and fruit drinks, which residents of the state prefer to drink on the hottest summer days.

Among alcoholic drinks, beer occupies a leading position. Estonia can compete well in brewing with the Czech Republic, which is famous all over the world for its variety of beers. Estonian drinks of this type are also prepared according to numerous old recipes everywhere. Each region has its own traditional recipe. And yet, everywhere two drinks take the lead: among the dark varieties - “Saare”, and among the light varieties - “Saku”. Honey beer is popular. The drink is often made at home. They are especially inclined towards beer brewed from juniper. Its taste is quite unusual.

Stronger drinks are a coffee-colored liqueur, with clearly visible flavor notes of rum, a red hue, smelling of caraway, mulled wine, also known as “Hoegwein,” and much more.

What to try in Estonia?

What to try in Estonia? We bring to your attention the names of the most popular national dishes in the table. We will also give a brief description of them so that you become familiar with the features, and most importantly, the composition of the food. After this, you will be aware of what you can eat in cafes, restaurants, bars in Tallinn and other cities of the country as a tourist. You will also know what dishes you can prepare at home to please your household with an original dish.

Name of the dish	Description
Meat dishes
Ahjuliha	Oven-baked meat (a whole piece of beef or pork).
Vereverst	This is the name of blood sausage, the filling of which is pearl barley porridge and chopped bacon.
Kartulipores	This is a baked dish that consists of meat covered with mashed potatoes.
Killatuhlid	A lean stew consisting of boiled pork and potatoes. There are no spices. Sour cream is used for serving.
Maxcastmes	This is liver stewed in milk, cut into pieces, which is complemented with green onions. Served with sour cream.
Mulgicapsas	A stew consisting of pork meat, sauerkraut and pearl barley.
Mulgicapsid	This is a stew consisting of pork, sauerkraut and barley.
Tuhlinott	A meat dish that is cooked from pork and potatoes with flour, and seasoned with salt, dill and marjoram.
Fish dishes
Kiluworm	Sprat baked with onions and spices (salt, pepper).
Roll pug	Herring marinated in vinegar. The fish is rolled into tubes, aged and served as an appetizer or main dish.
Silguworm	A layered dish of onions, potatoes, fish fillets (fresh and smoked herring, herring), topped with eggs beaten with milk. The food is baked.
Silgud Pekiketmes	Boiled herring in a sauce made from lard, onion, milk or flour.
Suitsukala	Trout, which is smoked and served as a main course or appetizer (cut into small pieces).
	A dish without heat treatment, consisting of flour, peas, rye, oats, barley.
Mulgicapsad	A dish of pearl barley and sauerkraut.
Mulgipuder	A dish containing mashed potatoes and pearl barley.
Tanguzhpuder	Porridge made from buckwheat and various vegetables.
Mulgicorp	Cheesecakes with cottage cheese, served with sour cream, jam or jam from fruits and berries.
Piparkook	Sweet traditional Estonian cookies with spices (including ginger, cinnamon, black pepper), decorated with icing patterns.
Marzipan	A cake in the form of different figures, which contains almonds and powdered sugar. The sweetness is covered with glaze.

So, that’s the end of our acquaintance with Estonian cuisine. Now you know about many of the peculiarities and traditions of Estonian cuisine, and what dishes you should definitely try if you decide to visit this northern country. You also know which dishes will suit your taste and which ones should be prepared at home. For help, use the step-by-step recipes with photos offered on our website, cook and enjoy the excellent taste of Estonian traditional dishes.