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Swedish Salad
Take a couple of pickled herrings, cut off the heads and tails, remove the bones, and divide the flesh into dice. Mix with these 2 apples peeled and sliced, 2 large boiled potatoes cut into dice, an equal quantity of cold roast beef, and a little sliced beetroot. Add 1 tablespoonful of sliced gherkins, 1 tablespoonful of capers, 1 tablespoonful of shred tarragon leaves, 2 tablespoonfuls of chopped chervil, and 1 hard-boiled egg finely minced. Season the salad rather highly with pepper, salt, oil, and vinegar. Put the whole in a salad bowl, and serve. A dozen or more freshly opened oysters may, if liked, be laid upon the top of the salad, and various additions may be made to it. Pickled shrimps, filleted anchovies, dressed Brussels sprouts, olives, curled celery, and green onions may all be introduced at discretion, and any other kind of dried or pickled fish may be used instead of herrings, if preferred.
This is the Swedish sillsallad in its Victorian English dress: a chopped salad of cured herring, beetroot, potato and beef bound only by oil and vinegar. The hinge is the herring — everything else is adjustable, but the fish sets the salt level, so dress and season last.
- Which herring"Pickled herrings" here means salt-cured or vinegar-cured whole fish sold from the barrel, considerably saltier than modern jarred herring in wine sauce. If using barrel-salted fillets, soak them in cold water or milk several hours and taste before adding any salt; if using jarred, drain well and expect to need almost none.
- Quantities and yieldTwo herrings, two apples, two potatoes and a matching volume of beef make roughly six side servings. The vegetables should all be diced to about the size of the herring dice so the salad forks up evenly.
- Beetroot lastCooked beetroot bleeds. Dice it, dress it separately in a spoonful of the vinegar, and fold it in at the very end unless you want the whole bowl uniformly pink — traditional Swedish versions often do, but the choice should be deliberate.
- The beefThe recipe simply calls for cold roast beef, the sort of cold joint a household would have had to hand. Any firm cold roast meat works; avoid anything sauced or gravy-soaked, which turns the dressing muddy.
- Chervil and tarragonTwo tablespoons of chopped chervil is a lot by modern shopping habits and it is not always easy to find. Flat-leaf parsley with a little extra tarragon is the usual substitute; dried tarragon is not a match for the fresh shredded leaves called for.
- Dressing proportionsThe recipe gives no ratio. Three parts oil to one part vinegar is the safe starting point, but cured herring and gherkins already carry acid, so begin with less vinegar and correct once mixed.
- The applesUse a firm tart variety and slice or dice them into the dressing promptly so the acid keeps them from browning. They are structural here, not a garnish.
- The optional oystersRaw oysters laid on top are served uncooked; buy from a reputable supplier, keep them cold, shuck just before serving, and skip them entirely for anyone pregnant, elderly, or immunocompromised.
- Rest before servingTwenty to thirty minutes in the refrigerator lets the potato and apple take up the dressing. Much longer and the herbs dull and the potato goes soft.