Herring, Pickled, in Cream Sauce

The other one my father ate, and to a lot of people — him included — the better of the two. Same cured and pickled fish, dressed in sour cream with onion and dill. The dressing goes on after the fish is already preserved, so this one is strictly a refrigerator food.

Ingredients

• 1 lb pickled herring in vinegar, drained — see Herring, Pickled, in Vinegar

CREAM SAUCE

• 1 cup sour cream
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 1 tablespoon white vinegar from the herring jar
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 1/2 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
• 1 small white onion, sliced very thin
• 2 tablespoons fresh dill, chopped
• 1 tart apple, peeled and finely diced (optional, traditional)

Directions

Key ingredients

Black Pepper · Mustard

1. Step 1 - Drain the herring properly. Lift the pieces out of the vinegar brine and drain them well — ten minutes in a sieve. Carrying brine into the sauce thins it and it will break by the next day.
2. Step 2 - Build the sauce. Whisk the sour cream, heavy cream, the spoonful of herring brine, sugar, mustard and pepper until smooth. Taste it before the fish goes in; it should be a touch sharper and sweeter than you think you want, because the fish is about to mute it.
3. Step 3 - Fold, do not stir. Add the herring, onion, dill and apple if using, and fold gently. The fillets are fragile at this point and stirring shreds them.
4. Step 4 - Rest, but not too long. Refrigerate at least 4 hours so the onion softens and the dill comes through. Best on day one and day two.
5. Keeps 1 week refrigerated, and no longer — the dairy is now the limiting ingredient, not the fish. Do not freeze it; the sauce splits.
6. Serve on dark rye, on boiled new potatoes, or straight out of the bowl.

Notes

The distinction that matters. The cream is a dressing, not a preservative. The fish was preserved by salt and then by vinegar; the sour cream is added at the end for flavour and texture. That is why vinegar herring keeps for weeks and this keeps for one, and why this version has never been a shelf-stable product.

My father’s two. Vinegar, and cream sauce. That was the whole repertoire, and he bought both in gallon containers. He did not cook — confirmed in his own words — and the herring is his contribution to how I eat, which is a real one.

Variations worth knowing. The apple is traditional and it is genuinely good — it puts a sweet-tart note against the sour cream. Some versions use creme fraiche instead of sour cream for a richer result, some add a spoonful of mayonnaise for body, and Swedish versions often add a little grated onion rather than sliced. Beetroot turns it pink and is a step toward the Russian selyodka pod shuboy, “herring under a fur coat”, which layers the fish under beet, potato, carrot, egg and mayonnaise.

Buying rather than making. No shame in it. The refrigerated jars are much better than the shelf-stable ones, and cream-sauce herring goes off faster than vinegar herring — check the date.