Home › The Principles of Cookery › Herrings, Kippered
Herrings, Kippered
Take the required number of kippered herrings, cut off the heads and tails, put a small piece of butter and some pepper between each pair. They may then be baked in a moderate oven for fifteen minutes, or grilled over a clear fire.
A two-line method that assumes you already have proper kippers in the house. The only real decisions are heat, time, and how much butter.
- What a kipper isA herring split, brined and cold-smoked, so it is cured but not cooked. Buy them whole and undyed if you can; the mahogany-coloured dyed sort are generally more lightly smoked.
- "A moderate oven"Usually taken as somewhere around 350F. Fifteen minutes suits a pair of average kippers laid flat; large ones may need a little longer.
- Grilling "over a clear fire"A fire burnt down past the smoke and flame, so the fish takes heat without soot. Under a modern broiler, put them skin-side down about four inches from the element and give them four to six minutes without turning.
- The pairing trick"Between each pair" appears to mean sandwiching two kippers flesh-to-flesh with the butter between them, which would help keep the flesh from drying.
- SaltNo salt is called for and none should be added. Pepper alone is correct; cured herring carries plenty of its own.
- The alternative Victorian methodAn alternative Victorian method -- kippers were also jugged, stood head-down in a tall jug of boiling water for five to ten minutes. It gives a softer, less oily result and no smell in the oven.
- YieldOne kipper per person at breakfast, two if it is the whole meal. Serve with brown bread and butter, a wedge of lemon, and a poached egg if you want it substantial.
- BonesThe fine pin bones stay in. Lifting the flesh off the frame in strips is one common way through them.
Kippering — splitting, salting and cold-smoking a herring — is by tradition credited to Woodger of Seahouses in Northumberland in the middle of the nineteenth century, though the word "kipper" itself is older, and the trade grew alongside the railways that could carry cured fish inland overnight. By the time Cassell's dictionary was compiled, the North Sea herring fishery was among the largest in Britain and kippers were a cheap, keeping breakfast available in almost every town. The entry is correspondingly brief, offering only the two acceptable ways to heat the fish: bake or grill rather than fry, with nothing more than butter and pepper to bring it to the table.