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Salad, Flemish
Cut off the heads and tails from two Dutch herrings, and divide them into slices of half an inch thick. Cut the fish slantwise, and place them in their natural position; add potatoes cut into squares, Brussels sprouts, a few green onions, some celery, all boiled, and season with oil, vinegar, pepper, and salt. Any pickled or dried fish may be used instead of herrings.
A composed salt-herring salad of the sort that turns up across the Low Countries and Germany. Almost everything hinges on the herring: buy it cured, and taste it before it goes near the dressing.
- "Dutch herrings"Salt-cured herring in barrels or vacuum packs — maatjes, matjes or schmaltz herring from a Dutch or German delicatessen. Whole salt herring needs filleting and soaking in cold water or milk for several hours, changed once or twice; ready-filleted maatjes usually needs only a rinse. Taste a sliver first, since salt levels vary wildly between brands.
- Do not substitute fresh herringThe recipe assumes fish already preserved and edible without cooking. Fresh or unsalted herring is not interchangeable here. Rollmops or other vinegar-cured herring works, but drain it well or the dressing turns sour.
- Slicing slantwiseCut the fillet on a steep bias into half-inch pieces, then push them back together, as the recipe directs, so the salad shows an intact fish shape with the slices fanned. The recipe says nothing about the serving dish or temperature, but reassembling the fish implies the salad is arranged rather than tossed, and served cold.
- "All boiled"As written this follows the whole list, potatoes, sprouts, green onions and celery alike. Boil them separately, drain, and cool to room temperature before dressing — waxy potatoes hold their cubes, floury ones collapse. Halve or quarter the sprouts once cooked. Departing from the original, the green onions can be left raw and thinly sliced.
- The dressingThe recipe names only oil, vinegar, pepper and salt, without proportions. A conventional three parts oil to one of vinegar works, whisked with pepper and only a little salt given the fish. Dressing the vegetables while still slightly warm helps them absorb it, then arrange the herring on top and spoon over the remainder.
- YieldTwo herrings and the vegetables give a first course for four, or a light lunch for two with rye bread and butter.
- Other fishThe closing line allows any pickled or dried fish: salt cod (soaked and poached) or pickled sprats would suit, and smoked mackerel is a loose modern equivalent. Cured fish of the period was generally saltier than most equivalents sold now, so adjust the seasoning by tasting rather than by rule.
Salt herring was the staple protein of the North Sea coast for centuries, and cold salads built on it are common to Dutch, Flemish, German and Scandinavian tables — the German Heringssalat and the Dutch haringsalade are close relatives, though those are often bound with cream or mayonnaise rather than left dressed with oil and vinegar. Cassell's, compiled for late-Victorian British households, catalogued such continental preparations alphabetically alongside the plainer English ones, which is why the entry appears here as "Salad, Flemish". The "Dutch herring" called for in the recipe meant the barrel-cured fish then imported in quantity, familiar enough that the book gives no further description.