Herring, Pickled, in Vinegar

One of the two my father ate, and the sharper of the pair. Clear brine, onion rings, whole spice. The thing most people do not realise is that a pickled herring is a salt-cured fish that is then pickled — the salt did the preserving and the vinegar is the second act.

Ingredients

• 2 lb salt-cured herring fillets (matjes or schmaltz herring)
• — or 2 lb fresh herring fillets plus 1 cup pickling salt, see Step 1 —

BRINE

• 2 cups white vinegar (5% acidity)
• 1 cup water
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons mixed pickling spice
• 1 tablespoon yellow mustard seed
• 1 tablespoon black peppercorns
• 8 whole allspice berries
• 6 bay leaves
• 2 large white onions, sliced into thin rings

Directions

Key ingredients

Black Pepper · Mustard · Salt

1. Step 1 - Start from salt-cured fish, or cure it. Easiest route is to buy salt-cured herring in brine from a Scandinavian, German, Polish or Eastern European grocer. If starting from fresh fillets, first read Fish, Freezing to Destroy Parasites (Reference), then layer the fillets in pickling salt in a non-reactive container and refrigerate 48 hours, which draws out water and firms the flesh.
2. Step 2 - Soak the salt back out. This is the step people skip and then wonder why their herring is inedible. Cover the cured fillets in cold water and refrigerate 8 to 12 hours, changing the water three times. Taste a corner at the end — it should be pleasantly salty, not aggressive.
3. Step 3 - Make the brine and cool it completely. Boil the vinegar, water, sugar and all the spices together until the sugar dissolves. Let it go completely cold. Warm brine on cured fish turns the surface chalky.
4. Step 4 - Cut and layer. Cut fillets into 1-inch pieces. Layer into jars alternating fish and onion rings, distributing the whole spices as you go so every jar gets some.
5. Step 5 - Cover and wait. Pour the cold brine over to cover completely. Refrigerate at least 3 days before eating; it is better at 5 and holds well for 2-3 weeks.
6. Serve cold, with dark rye or boiled potatoes, and the onions out of the jar alongside.

Notes

Where this comes from. My father loved pickled herring and it is how I came to it. I want to be accurate about him: he did not make it. He bought it — in large gallon containers — and ate it. Back then it was a popular buffet food and it was everywhere on cruise ships, which is a good part of why a man in the American Midwest ate quantities of a Northern European preserved fish. That is not a lesser story. He knew what he liked and got hold of it by the gallon.

The other one is Herring, Pickled, in Cream Sauce, and between them they are the whole of what he ate.

The invention story is a myth. Every account credits Willem Beukelszoon of Biervliet with inventing gibbing in the 14th century. The legend does not appear in the record until the 17th century — 250 years later — historians cannot confirm he existed, and gibbing was not new anyway. What actually changed was that Dutch and Flemish crews began gibbing aboard ship instead of on land. The innovation was where, not what. Same shape as the Genghis Khan sauerkraut story: real technique, invented transmission.

Named styles. Matjes is young fat herring caught before spawning, mildly cured — the delicate one. Bismarckhering is sharper, vinegar-cured. Rollmops are fillets rolled around a pickled cucumber or onion and pinned. Surstromming is a ferment, not a pickle, and belongs to a different section entirely.

Denmark. I ate pickled herring in Denmark and it was a thrill. What struck me was how completely ordinary it was there — not a delicacy, just lunch.