Herring

Anyone know the type of herring fillet that tastes a little sour and salty? It may have a hint of sweetness, but not too much.

My grandfather (ukranian) used to buy it, and I recently had something very close to it at a German restaurant.

However, when I went to buy herring from speciality stores, they sold me herring that tasted too sweet. Same happenned with all the canned herring I bought.

do you remember where the 'sweet' herrings come from?

rollmop is sour, also known as pickled herring. similarly, Bismarck herring. served with lots of cream and some horseradish.

maatjes are dutch, which are cleaned on board the fish trawlers, salt cured and frozen. eaten with chopped raw onion [also with sweet sour gherkins in Amsterdam, cut up, and a fork is used. what a blunder! ].

Most of the canned and jarred herrings you find are on the sweet side. If you've got a German or Eastern European food store, your chances of finding what you're lookiing for are improved. A properly prepared Bismarck won't be too sweet, nor a rollmop, which is nothing more than a Bismarck rolled around an onion or pickle.

If you're located near NYC or Philadelphia, try one of the big Russian supermarkets. In Chicago or Cleveland, there's got to be larger Slavic grocery stores that would probably offer a less sweet herring. But just like in other stores, smaller cans or jars of herring are likely to be too sugary. If a store as a nice display of herrings either in trays in refrigerated cases hand-packed, your odds improve.

If you are more adventurous, you could mail-order salt herring (you can get it in fillets rather than whole if you wish) and make your own pickled herring.

Thanks for the info. I'm in the NYC area (Long Island); I'm going to look for russian supermarkets.

I'd love to pickle them myself. Is salted herring ready to eat after soaking? Or the vinegar continues the curing?

I'd love to pickle them myself. Is salted herring ready to eat after soaking? Or the vinegar continues the curing?

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After overnight soaking in cold water (salt herring is not dried; it's packed in brine), you need to pickle it for a few days. Use white vinegar and dilute 1:1 with water, add pickle spices/herbs you like (dill weed or seed, coriander seed, mustard seed, allspice, bay leaf, peppercorns, whatever), and just a little sugar (with 1-1/2 cup of vinegar/water mix, most recipes called for 1/4 cup sugar; I'd cut that back to one tablespoon unless you want to taste more sugar). Combine the brine ingredients and pour over the herring, with some sliced onions on top, then let it pickle in the fridge for three days.

If you want it more sour, by all means go ahead. I've seen recipes for a 3:1 vinegar/water ratio that call for only a scant amount of sugar. The old Settlement Cookbook, for example, calls for 3 cups vinegar, 1 cup water and 1 tablespoon sugar to pickle 12 whole herrings (24 fillets).