Fresh Herrings
Very carefully scale and clean, but leave the roes in. Dry in a cloth, roll them in flour and fry eight to ten minutes, until a nice brown. If preferred, the heads, tails and backbones may be removed before frying.
A bare-bones fried fish instruction from a period when herring were cheap, plentiful and usually bought whole with the roe intact. A few details need filling in.
- Fat and panThe original does not say what to fry in; period practice would most often have meant dripping, lard or butter in a skillet. Use about a quarter-inch of a neutral oil or clarified butter over medium-high heat, and let the pan come up to heat before the fish goes in, which reduces sticking.
- Eight to ten minutesThat is total time for a whole herring of roughly 8–10 oz, turned once, and it is reasonable. Boned or filleted fish needs far less: three to four minutes a side at most, or the flesh dries and the flour coating darkens past pleasant.
- Dry in a clothThis is the hinge. Herring hold a lot of surface moisture and the flour will slide off in gummy patches if the skin is damp. Pat thoroughly dry, then flour just before frying rather than in advance.
- The roesSoft (milt) and hard (egg) roes were considered the best part and were left in deliberately. Whole herring sold today are usually gutted; ask a fishmonger for roe-in fish or buy the roes separately and fry them alongside for two to three minutes.
- ScalingHerring scales are large, loose and go everywhere. Scale under cold running water or in a sink of water, working tail to head with the back of a knife.
- Slashing the sidesNot in the original, but three shallow diagonal cuts through the skin on each side help a whole fish cook evenly and stop the skin curling in the pan.
- DonenessThe flesh at the thickest point behind the head should be opaque and lift cleanly from the backbone. Aim for 145°F if checking with a thermometer.
- Yield and servingOne whole herring per person as a main course, two for a substantial breakfast. Lemon, a mustard sauce, or plain brown bread and butter are common accompaniments.
Herring were a mainstay of the North Atlantic and North Sea fisheries, and among the cheapest animal protein available in Britain and the northern United States — salted and barrelled for winter, but eaten fresh wherever the boats landed. Frying in flour is the plainest possible treatment, and the note about leaving the roes in reflects a real preference of the period: soft roe on toast was a supper dish in its own right. That the Butterick book, published for a broad American home-sewing and housekeeping audience, gives the recipe in three sentences suggests its readers needed no persuading about herring; the only choice offered is whether to bone the fish first, a concession to diners impatient with the herring's fine, numerous bones.