KRISTINE MARIE JENSEN, 1901
8 fillets of salted herring – 5 dl milk rye bread – butter
Marinade: 2 onions – 1.5 dl water
4 dl vinegar – 3 dl sugar – 3 bay leaves – 3 juniper berries – ½ tsp. mustard seeds – ¼ tsp. dill seeds
Toppings: – onion rings
capers – dill – tomato
Suggested drinks
Beer: German or Czech pilsner;
Herslev Hoppy Pils
Aquavit: Clear caraway infused; Aalborg Taffel Aquavit
The most classic of all herring recipes, and a dish prepared for hundreds of years, this recipe is from one of Denmark’s first popular recipe books, Frøken Jensens Kogebog.
Buy (or make your own) salted herring fillets. Put them in milk, then in the refrigerator for 12-24 hours to remove the salty taste.
Prepare the marinade, bring it to a boil, let it cool down on the kitchen counter, and then cool it in the refrigerator. Rinse the herring fillets in cold water and place them in the cold marinade, preferably overnight or for several days.
Serve on rye bread with rings of raw onion, capers, dill, and tomato.
This herring recipe is the basis for dozens of other recipes. For example, you can make a sauce of mayonnaise with curry, add apples, and then you have curried herring. Substitute curry with mustard and trade apples for onions to make mustard herring and so on – the possibilities are close to endless.
