with smetana and "red caviar"
roe Smetana is used in Central, Southeastern, and Eastern European
cuisines in
appetizers, main courses, soups and desserts. For example, it may be blended with soups, vegetable salads,
cole slaw, and meat dishes. It is served with dumplings (
pelmeni,
pierogi,
varenyky), or with pancakes (
bliny,
palacsinta,
naleśniki,
oladyi,
syrniki). It is also used as a filling in savoury pancakes. Smetana can be blended to a
Liptauer-like
cheese spread with
quark or
cottage cheese, onions, paprika and other spices, and eaten with bread. Smetana is often used in cooking, as it is high enough in fat not to curdle at higher temperatures. It is used in the preparation of meat stews, such as
beef Stroganoff, vegetable stews,
casseroles, or other dishes that require a long cooking time in the oven. Smetana does not melt in the oven.
Hungarian cooks use it as an ingredient in
sauces such as
paprikas, and in
recipes such as
palacsinta (crepes) filled with
ham or minced meat (
hortobágyi palacsinta). A similar use is common in Eastern European Jewish cuisines, except that smetana is not used with meat dishes due to the Jewish dietary prohibition of mixing dairy products with meat. with smetana and onion The current trend toward reduced fat content is believed to have resulted in an inferior product. To imitate Hungarian-style cooking and the use of smetana (called
tejföl in Hungarian), Hungarian cookbooks recommend using Western sour cream mixed with heavy whipping cream (38–40% milkfat). Unlike sour cream mixed with whipping cream, smetana is not
homogenized. served with smetana In Central European countries such as the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia, smetana may refer to sweet cream or soured cream. It should contain at least 10% fat. Smetana that has at least 30% fat is called
smetana ke šlehání (whipping cream) and is used for the production of
šlehačka (
whipped cream). In
Ukrainian,
Belarusian, and
Russian cuisines, sour cream is often added to
borscht and other
soups, and is used as a
salad dressing and as a
condiment for dumplings, such as
varenyky and
pelmeni. Likewise, in
Polish cuisine smetana can be added to soups as well as to traditional
pierogi dumplings. It is also used in gravies served with Bohemian (Czech) cuisine, such as marinated beef
svíčková. In
Slovak cuisine, smotana (cognate of smetana) is often incorporated into
bryndzové halušky and
pierogi. In
Serbia, smetana is consumed in the same manner as in Hungary, or most of
Central/
Eastern Europe, mainly as an ingredient in stews, pies,
salads, or appetizers, while also being consumed as a condiment eaten with savory meaty meals or cold cuts. It can be bought as smetana in rural communities, while mostly being referred as
кисела павлака (sour cream) in larger markets where it usually contains between 15 to 30% fat. Historically it used to have a higher fat content, being somewhat more similar to clotted cream than it is today.
Schmand mit Glumse (whipped cream with
quark) is used in Prussian and other Germanic cuisines in savory dishes and also for cakes called
Schmandkuchen and desserts. A German medical book published in 1677 recommended
Schmant or
Milchraam as the best part of the milk. Schmand is the cream of the milk, or the foam that rises up like the foam on beer. Schmand or Schmant also describes other fatty foamy material and is known as a byproduct of mining (
Grubenschmant), for example in vitriol development. The Central European name for fattier varieties of smetana,
mileram, is probably a variation of the earlier
Bavarian name for the product,
Millirahm, meaning "milk cream". When comparing brands or suppliers of smetana, the Polish and Russian practice is to compare the fat content of the varieties. Fat content can range from 10% (runny) to 70% (thick). The most common supermarket smetana is 10% to 40% fat (milk fat only for an authentic product). Thickeners such as gelatine or starch may be added, although this is often considered to be adulteration and may make such smetana unsuitable for many culinary uses. ==Etymology==