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HERRINGS, MARINADED (a German recipe)
Put some white salted herrings into cold milk, to soak for a couple of hours. Split them open, take out the bones, cut each half-herring into three pieces, and divide the roes lengthwise. Put all in layers into a deep jar, and between each layer place a sprinkling of finely-minced shallot, pounded cloves, and white pepper, with here and there a piece of bay-leaf and a slice of fresh lemon with half the rind taken off. Place the roe with the herring, and the seasoning over the top layer, and cover the whole well with vinegar. Pour three or four table-spoonfuls of salad-oil over the vinegar, and leave it until required. The pieces of herring should be drained when wanted, and served either with cheese or as a relish for salads, breakfast, luncheon, etc. They may be used in a couple of days, but will keep good for some time. Probable cost, about 1s. per dozen.
This is a cold marinade built on fish that has already been preserved in salt — nothing is cooked, so the quality of the herring and the strength of the vinegar carry the whole dish.
- "White salted herrings"These are whole herrings cured in dry salt or heavy brine in barrels — sold today as salt herring, matjes or schmaltz herring, usually in Eastern European, German and Jewish delicatessens. Fresh herring will not work: it has neither the firmness nor the salt-cure the recipe assumes, and the milk soak is there specifically to draw out excess salt.
- The milk soakTwo hours suits a moderately salted fish. Barrel herring varies enormously, so taste a scrap after soaking; a very hard-salted fish may want four hours or an overnight change of milk, a mild matjes fillet almost none.
- Vinegar strengthUse a vinegar of at least 5 per cent acidity — malt, cider or white wine — and cover the fish completely. The acid, not the oil, is what holds the marinade. Diluted or "mellow" low-acid vinegars leave the jar under-protected.
- Pounded clovesCloves crushed in a mortar are assertive. Four or five whole cloves, crushed, is enough for a dozen half-herrings; more and the marinade tastes medicinal.
- The roesVictorian barrel herring were sold with both hard roe and soft roe (milt). Either can go in, split lengthwise as directed, but soft roe breaks up quickly in acid and is best eaten within a day or two.
- VesselA "deep jar" means glass or glazed stoneware. Do not marinade in aluminium, cast iron or bare copper — the vinegar will pit the metal and taint the fish.
- The oil filmThe three or four spoonfuls of salad oil poured on top are a seal against air, an old cellar technique rather than a seasoning. Keep it intact and skim it off, or simply lift the pieces out from beneath it, when serving.
- Storage"Will keep good for some time" assumed a cool larder and a much saltier fish than most modern cures. Refrigerate the jar and treat a week to ten days as the useful life; the recipe notes they may be used after a couple of days.
- Yield and servingA dozen salted herrings, halved and cut in three, gives roughly seventy pieces — enough for a large party. Half a dozen fish is a more practical batch: drain the pieces, and serve with rye bread and butter, boiled potatoes, or in a salad with beetroot and onion.
Cassell's flags this as "a German recipe", and it belongs to the broad family of north German pickled herrings — marinierte Heringe, of which the boneless rolled Rollmops and the vinegar-cured Bismarckhering are the best-known commercial forms. The last of these is traditionally traced to a Stralsund fish merchant who sent a barrel to the Chancellor and was permitted to use his name; the story is repeated everywhere but is not firmly documented. What is documented is the trade behind the dish: from the Middle Ages onward barrel-salted herring from the Dutch, Baltic and Scottish fisheries was one of Europe's great bulk commodities, cheap, portable, and available inland year-round, and every coast on the North Sea developed a way of soaking the salt out again and re-seasoning the fish with vinegar, onion and spice. Its appearance in a late-Victorian English dictionary of cookery reflects two things at once — a fashionable appetite for continental savouries at breakfast and luncheon, and the plain economy of a relish that cost about a shilling a dozen and kept without ice.