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Filet of Smoked Herring in Oil
Open a small box of smoked herrings in oil. Neatly trim, wash and drain four leaves of lettuce, place them on a side dish, then dress six pieces of herring on the lettuce, decorate with quarters of lemon and serve.
An hors d'oeuvre rather than a cooked dish: the work is entirely in the buying and the arranging. What matters is the quality of the tin and the temperature at which it reaches the table.
- What to buy"Smoked herrings in oil" in a small box means what is now sold as kipper snacks or smoked herring fillets in oil, in a flat tin of roughly 3 to 4 oz. Avoid anything packed in tomato or mustard sauce, which will fight the lemon.
- "Filet"The original assumes boneless fillets. Tinned kippers often retain the fine pin bones, which are soft enough to eat, but run a thumb down each piece and lift out the backbone strip if it is present.
- Drain, then oil againLift the fillets out and let them drain a moment on paper; the packing oil is generally a neutral vegetable oil rather than olive. A spoonful of good olive oil over the fish on the plate is closer to what the dish is after.
- "A side dish"In cookbooks of this era a "side dish" generally means a small serving platter rather than a bowl of vegetables. A cold salad plate is the modern equivalent.
- YieldSix pieces on four leaves of lettuce serves two as a first course, or four if it is one of several hors d'oeuvre on the table.
- Serve it coldChill the tin before opening and keep the assembled plate refrigerated until it goes out. Oil-packed smoked fish turns greasy and assertive at room temperature.
- What goes with itThin rye or pumpernickel and butter, and a few capers or thin rings of raw onion, are traditional accompaniments to cured herring and keep the plate from reading as bare.
Salted and smoked herring was for centuries among the cheapest preserved foods in northern Europe, and the small flat tin of smoked herring fillets in oil belongs to the era of commercial fish canning, which turned a fisherman's staple into something a city kitchen could keep on a shelf. Its appearance here among the hors d'oeuvre reflects the French service of the period, in which a table of cold hors d'oeuvre variés — sardines, anchovies, radishes, smoked herring — opened the meal and required the cook to do little more than trim, arrange and garnish. The lemon is not decoration only: acid cuts the oil and the smoke, and the pairing of cured herring with lemon or vinegar is old enough that it is generally treated as the default rather than an invention of any one kitchen.