Pickled herring with curry salad is a Danish delicacy.  Preferably consume it on dark rye bread with a glass of aquavit on the side in the presence of friends. You can easily eat this for lunch or dinner. It is full of flavor and healthiness.  We describe here in detail how you safely make the pickled herring from freshly caught herring (here from the Great Lakes in Canada). But in Denmark and specialty fish stores elsewhere they may sell the pickled herring.  The curry salad is also made from scratch. But you can buy it in the north European countries.

The art of making pickled herring with curry salad

Pickled herring with curry salad requires time. Always first clean the fresh herring. Cut off the head, tail and the dorsal and pectoral fins. Thereafter cut along the stomach, take the intestines out and slice fillets from both sides as a butterflied fish. You can also slice along the spine and create two filets.

Immerse the cleaned fish in a cold, very dilute vinegar solution.

Pickled herring is not cooked, so food safety requires to eliminate the occurrence of any fish worms by other means than cooking or pasteurization. We do this by freezing the fish. Especially fish from the Great Lakes is prone to this. Freeze at -20 C for several days. Never make short cuts on this simple precautionary measure.

The freezing is followed by a 12 hour brining step, and then the fish is immersed in a fresh pickling solution. This you refrigerate. In this way you can easily store the pickled fish for a month or longer.

The curry salad requires -amongst others- European curry, which is a mixture of turmeric, coriander, cardamom, fenugreek, cumin, chilli, ginger, pepper, fennel seeds, mustard seeds and paprika,  and is best made a day in advance. You can store the curry salad for several weeks in the fridge.

Special equipment

Glass jars

pickled herring with kerry salad©️ Nel Brouwer-van den Bergh

Pickled herring with curry salad

Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 4 days
Total Time 4 days
Course Appetizer, Dinner, Lunch
Cuisine Scandinavian
Servings 6

Ingredients
  

herring

  • 1.1 lb (500 g) fresh herring

for the pre-treatment

  • 1/4 cup 5% white vinegar
  • 1 quart water
  • 1/2 cup salt (no iodine added)
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1 quart water

for the pickling liquid

  • 1 cup water
  • 1/2 quart white vinegar (5%)
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 15 juniper berries
  • 10 whole pepper corns
  • 1 bay leave
  • several twigs of dill weed or dill seeds
  • two fingers full coriander seeds
  • 1 red or white onion not to be boiled in the pickling liquid
  • a few thin slices of lemon not to be boiled in the pickling liquid

for the curry salad

  • 0.8 oz (20 g) dill pickle
  • 1 tsp turmeric
  • 0.4 oz (10 g) dijon mustard
  • 3 tsp european curry powder
  • 0.4 oz (10 g) celery stem
  • 0.8 oz (20 g) cooked macaroni, finely sliced optional
  • some sugar or honey to taste
  • 5 oz (140 g) mayonnaise

Instructions
 

cleaning

  • Mix 1/4 cup of vinegar and 3 3/4 cups of ice coldwater
  • Cut off head, tail and the dorsal and pectoral fin
  • Slice along the stomach and remove the intestines
  • Butterfly the fish or slice two filets
  • store the cleaned fish in the cold dilute vinegary solution (above), preferably not longer than an hour

freezing

  • Drain the fish and place them in a vacuum sealed bag or zip lock bag and freeze them for at least 48 h at -20 C

brining

  • Make a solution of 1/2 cup salt (iodine free), 1/2 cup sugar in around 3 cups of water
  • Place the frozen fish in the brine solution for 12 hours. The salt and sugar will extract water from the fish, which helps preservation and imparts taste
    brined herring ©️ Nel Brouwer-van den Bergh

pickling

  • Mix all the pickling ingredients (except for the onion and lemon) together and bring to a boil. Simmer for 10 minutes. Then let it cool
  • Slice the onion and lemon in thin rings
  • Sterilize the jars by filling them with boiling water and lettting them stand for 10 min, do not forget the lids
  • After the jars are sterilized, empty them carefully and place a layer of onion rings and some lemon on the bottom. Add fish fillets to a third, then add the pickling liquid with herbs, add more onion, lemon, fish and pickling liquid, until the jar is full.
  • Cap the jar with the steralized lid and refrigerate
    pickled herring ©️ Nel Brouwer-van den Bergh

making the curry salad

  • Cut the dill pickles and cooked macroni (if using) in very small slices
  • Mix all the other ingredients and let it stand in the fridge preferably for a day, so the flavors blend

serving

  • Drain some fillets and serve them on dark rye bread, covered with a thin spread of sour cream and then top the fish with curry salad. If you can get your hands on it, serve a glass of aquavit with it.

Notes

Method: raw, pickling
Food allergy & intolerance information: fish, egg
Keyword herring, kerry, pickled, salad

Remarks

Always try to use the freshest fish.  I buy the herring from local native fisheries.

You may have always thought that herring only lives in the sea; yet the formation of the Great Lakes through the ice ages made sea fish adapting to the fresh water.  In Canada and northern United States we find herring and salmon that never encounter salt water.

Making this from scratch is somewhat time consuming. But you are the master of the freshness and taste.

If you can get your hands on store bought pickled herring, you could save time, but pickling fish is fun.

A recipe for mayonaise you find here.

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