No. 787

Herring, Shad or Mackerel, Marinated

Harengs Alose ou Maquereau Marines.

Clean twelve fat very fresh and soft-roed herrings, or any other of the above fishes; put them into a vessel between layers of salt and leave in a cool place for twelve hours; drain off. These may be served whole, or else cut off their heads and tails. Mince four ounces of carrots, two ounces of onions, and fry colorless in two ounces of butter, adding a bunch of parsley garnished with two bay leaves, as much thyme, two cloves of garlic, a teaspoonful of whole pepper and a few bits of mace. Moisten the whole with a bottleful of white wine and a pint of water, then let cook slowly for one hour. Lay the herrings in a deep, covered vessel, strain the stock and pour it over; boil before setting it in a slack oven for fifteen minutes; let the herrings get half cold, then arrange them on to a dish, strain the gravy over, adding to it whole peppers, bay leaf, cloves and round slices of blanched onions, and dress them on separate side dishes, pour some of the pickle over, and garnish with the slices of onions and half slices of finely cut lemons.

← No. 786 Ham, Boiled and Raw Westphalian Cold Side Dishes No. 788 Smoked Herrings →

For the Modern Kitchen

A classic cooked marinade: the fish is salted, then poached in a strained wine court-bouillon and left to cool in it. Nothing here is difficult, but the salting step and the oven heat are where it goes wrong.

Salt for hours, not overnight and a dayTwelve hours in dry salt firms the flesh so it does not fall apart in the liquid. The recipe says only to drain; rinsing and patting dry as well will keep the finished dish from tasting oversalted.
"Soft-roed" means the malesA soft-roed herring is a milter, carrying milt rather than hard eggs. Presumably they were specified for the fatter, softer flesh, though the recipe only asks for fish that are fat and very fresh. Fishmongers rarely sort by sex now; buy the fattest whole herring available, or ask for gutted mackerel of even size.
A bottleful of white wineRead this as a standard 750 ml bottle of dry white. With the pint of water that gives roughly a litre and a quarter of marinade, enough to cover twelve herrings in a snug dish.
A slack ovenSlack is the coolest working heat, about 275-300F. The liquid is already boiling when it goes in, so the oven is only holding it below a simmer for fifteen minutes. A hard boil in the oven will burst the skins and cloud the pickle.
Mace and whole spiceMace is the lacy outer covering of nutmeg, sold as blades or ground; blades are what "bits of mace" means. Use whole peppercorns and whole cloves as written, since the stock is strained and the spices reappear only as garnish.
Blanched onions for the garnishSlice onions into rounds, drop them into boiling water for a minute and refresh in cold. This takes the raw bite out while keeping the rings intact for laying over the fish.
Cool in the liquid, then chill"Let the herrings get half cold" in the stock is where the flavour goes in. Once dressed, keep the dish refrigerated and eat within three days; this is a lightly acidulated marinade, not a preserve.
YieldTwelve herrings will serve eight to twelve as a cold first course, one or two fish each depending on size. Shad is much larger and very bony; two or three fillets, rather than whole fish, suit the same treatment.

A Little History

This is Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the enormous record of his years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and the recipe sits in a chapter of cold side dishes meant to stand on a buffet or a side table through a long service. Cooking oily fish in a spiced wine marinade and serving it cold in its own liquid is old and widespread — the same idea underlies the Dutch and German soused herring, the French maquereaux au vin blanc still sold in tins, and the Spanish and Latin American escabeche, all generally traced to the practical need to make an abundant, quickly spoiling catch last a few days longer. The inclusion of shad is the American note: the Atlantic shad run up the Hudson and Delaware each spring was a major seasonal event in nineteenth-century northeastern kitchens, and Ranhofer treats the fish as an equal substitute for herring rather than a curiosity.