How to cook a herring? Dishes from herring: simple recipes

Salting is a traditional way to preserve fish. For example, the herring most often found on sale is salty, because it very quickly spoils. Most often the product is associated with Scandinavia, where this type of fish has been a traditional part of the diet for many centuries.

Salting herring is to soak it in a liquid with salt, sugar and spices. Lightly salted herring is a very popular traditional dish not only in Russia, but also in Holland, Sweden, Germany, Denmark and some other northern countries. In the former Soviet republics, this fish has always been salted in large quantities in wooden barrels. Then it is cleaned, cut and served with chopped onion and boiled potatoes. This combination is known as a classic appetizer for vodka. However, salting the herring entirely at home requires a slightly different technique, mainly for safety reasons.

Precautionary measures

Always remember that short-term salting does not guarantee that fresh fish will be cleared of parasites that may be present in marine fish and mammals. They are usually destroyed by treatment at high temperature or by deep freezing. To ensure safety, make sure that:

• You buy the freshest herring that can only be found on offer in your area.
• You must carefully remove all the gills and the entrails and wash each fish from the inside.

Purified and washed herring should be quickly frozen at home at -16 ° C or at the minimum temperature of your freezer. Freeze fish for at least 20 days. How to cook herring after freezing?

What you need:

• 3 medium herrings;
• 1.5 teaspoons of salt;
• 1/2 teaspoon of sugar;
• 3 laurel leaves (crushed);
• 1 tablespoon of sunflower or olive oil;
• 1/4 lemon juice;
• 1 large red onion.

How to cook salted salted herring

Mix salt, sugar and crushed bay leaf. Cover the herring with these spices on both sides, as well as from the inside. Place the herring in a glass container, close and put in the refrigerator for 2 days. Approximately in the middle of this period, turn the herring on the other side.

After that, your dish is ready. Now you can cut and serve the herring on the table. Cut the fish across into pieces about 2-3 cm wide. Gently lay the pieces next to each other on a tray or a large flat plate. When the fish is cut and folded, cut the onions and lay them on top. Serve this snack cold or at room temperature.

How to make pickled herring?

Unlike the ambassador, this method is the placement of fish in a spicy marinade. Such dishes from herring are most often national among the northern peoples. For example, the Scandinavian classic recipe is realized in life very simply. It will require the following ingredients:

• 1/4 cup of salt;
• 5 glasses of water;
• 500 grams of herring fillets;
• 2 cups of white wine vinegar;
• 1/4 cup sugar;
• 1 teaspoon mustard seeds;
• 2 teaspoons of fragrant pepper peas;
• 2 teaspoons black pepper;
• 3 bay leaves;
• 3 cloves garlic;
• 1 lemon, thinly sliced;
• 1 medium red onion, thinly sliced.

Heat 4 cups of water to a sufficient temperature to dissolve the salt. Allow the brine to cool to room temperature. Then immerse the herring fillets in it and store in the refrigerator for the night or up to 24 hours. After this time you will have a lightly salted herring, which you can eat.

To prepare marinated fish, mix sugar, vinegar, a glass of water and all the spices, bring to a boil. Simmer for 5 minutes, then turn off the stove and allow the marinade to cool.

Get the herring from the brine, fold it in a glass jar with layers of sliced lemon and red onions. Divide the spices between your containers if you use more than one. Fill the fish with a cooled marinade and close the jars. Let it brew for at least a day. Store pickled herring in the refrigerator can be up to 1 month.

The second variant of marinade

Marinated herring, whose recipes are numerous, can be prepared with mustard sauce. This is also a Swedish national snack, which may seem interesting to many.

For this dish you will need:

• About 0.5 kg of slightly salted herring;
• 3 tablespoons sweet mustard;
• One tablespoon Dijon mustard ;
• One tablespoon of brown sugar;
• One teaspoon of apple cider vinegar;
• 50 ml of neutral vegetable oil (for example, rape or sunflower oil);
• ½ cup of dill;
• Shallots (1 pc.).

Mix mustard, apple cider vinegar and sugar very carefully. Add the vegetable oil gradually with stirring. Slice the shallots and dill very finely and add to the sauce. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Place the pieces of herring in the marinade and mix very carefully so that the fish is covered on all sides evenly. Leave the herring marinated for several hours, preferably a day. Delicious homemade herring ready! Before serving, cut the green onions into small pieces and sprinkle the fish on top. Serve the herring with young potatoes or simply on dark rye bread with sliced boiled eggs. Enjoy!

What is a smoked herring?

Smoking is another way to keep the product. In order to make the smoked herring, the fish are gutted, cut along the spine, divided into 2 parts along the carcase and salt. Subsequently, lightly salted herring is hung on wooden pegs or "peaks". If cold smoking is supposed, oak or beech sawdust is also used. It's amazing that the smoked herring in its present form appeared only in the early 19th century, when one of the sellers began to regularly offer it on the London market, borrowing the term from the technique used with salmon. The best fish, cooked in this way, has a fragrance, which is a clever mixture of smoke and salt. Also smoked herring is very soft, but juicy and oily texture.

Herring, cooked in this way, is traditionally served on a table thinly sliced and watered with oil and lemon juice. How to cook smoked herring? To do this, you need special smoking equipment, without which the cooking process will not be realized. Therefore, it is better to buy this type of fish in ready-made form.

Experts in the field of cooking say that the classic serve is a finely chopped smoked fish fillet lined around the edges of a well-buttered rye bread, with egg yolk in the middle as a sauce.

Dishes from smoked herrings

If desired, you can make and pate or "caviar" of smoked herring. For him you will need:

• 1.5 cups of fined smoked herring fillet (crushed);
• ¼ cup unsalted butter, softened;
• 300 grams of cream cheese;
• Juice of 1 lemon;
• Cayenne pepper or paprika (to taste);
• 2 tablespoons fresh chopped parsley.

Mix or stir fish with butter, cream cheese, lemon juice, cayenne pepper and parsley. Lay out on a serving saucer or in one large salad bowl, cover with a plastic wrap and cool for several hours. Serve with crackers or toast with butter and slices of lemon.

What else can I cook?

Many housewives are wondering what to do with salted herring, because they are not familiar with the salting process. How to cook a herring that has become very salty? All you have to do is soak the fish in fresh water for the night, and then cook it in any way. Herring, the recipes of which presuppose thermal treatment, should become almost fresh.

Sauté from herring

Place the salted fish in a large bowl and fill it with a few glasses of water - so as to cover it whole. Cover the bowl with a plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator for the whole night.

Remove the bones from the herring with a sharp knife, cut off the head and tail. Divide the herring into two halves. Skin and discard.

Heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan over high heat. When the oil starts to slightly smoke, add the garlic. Put the halves of the herring and fry them for three minutes on each side (or until they become opaque and soft). Add fresh ground pepper to taste and decorate the dish with lemon slices.

Fried herring in deep-fried

Soak and clean the fish just like in the previous manual.

Heat 3 cups of olive oil in a deep frying pan over high heat to the boiling point. Moisten the herring fillets in milk, roll in flour or oat flakes with spices.

Put the fish in a frying pan and fry until lightly brown and crispy. Serve the herring in deep frying with parsley and lemon.

Baked herring

Soak the herring and make the fillet, as in previous recipes. Lubricate each piece with olive oil on all sides and place in a baking dish. Bake for three minutes. Take the herring from the oven and add fresh ground pepper to taste. Garnish with parsley and lemon slices.