Herring is found in three oceans, but on the Russian table it is a favorite, almost always, obligatory snack, and it does not matter which coast it was caught from, but the correct ambassador and well-chosen ingredients for salad, sandwiches, mincemeat, canapes and other eateries are important dishes.
Herring snacks - basic technological principles
Snacks are served before the main dishes, any festive feast begins with them, so it is important that they are not only tasty and original, but also beautifully decorated. The first impression is the most indelible.
An ordinary herring can decorate a table no worse than a "noble" fish, if you add a little creative imagination to your culinary skills. But first you need to choose the best and highest quality main ingredient - the most important thing in a herring is the right ambassador.
Just buy a well-fed salty carcass, with a dense flesh, a pleasant fresh smell characteristic of salty fish - the easiest way to prepare the main ingredient for a herring snack. But real connoisseurs and gourmets prefer to salt herring on their own.
It is simple: 180 g of salt, 60 g of sugar, 1 l of water - a marinade for simple salting of any fresh-frozen fish. If we add cloves, allspice, other spices to this marinade, then the taste of herring will improve significantly, and, in fact, the herring of spicy salting is already a wonderful and self-sufficient appetizer, which remains only to clean, cut and decorate with greens or other components that are ideal with it are combined.
Before salting, fish can not be plastered, and even the guts can not be removed, but be sure to remove the gills - this is the most dangerous source of infection. No wonder they say that the fish rots from the head. Fish in saline can be stored for a long time in the refrigerator, in a sealed container.
Salted herring is the main ingredient in appetizer salads, which have already become traditional dishes. Salads with herring are served as ordinary salads, their components are laid out in layers, in portions or in a large dish. Portion herring snacks are prepared in different ways: sandwiches, canapes, rolls, tartlets made of dough, potatoes, cheese - these are the most simple options for serving herring snacks available to any housewife.
A variety of products can serve as an addition to salted herring: boiled or fried potatoes, cucumbers, apples, beets, carrots, green and onions, cheese, eggs, avocados - the list can be expanded at your discretion, but even these components are enough to surprise guests with a variety of herring snacks without ever repeating themselves.
1. Appetizer: Cheese Tartlets with Herring
Ingredients:
Hard cheese 500 g;
Lettuce leaves
Salted herring fillet 1 pc.
Fresh cucumber 2-3 pcs.
Mayonnaise
Boiled eggs 3-4 pcs.
Green peas, pickled 200 g
Dill (leaves)
Cooking:
Grate the cheese on a grater, Put glasses or other utensils of suitable shape and size on the table in advance, upside down. Prepare a brush to grease the pan and the bottom of the glasses.
Pour the grated cheese onto a preheated skillet with a thin layer, and as soon as it melts, put the scone on a glass so that its edges hang down on the sides. Wait until the “cheese dishes” harden, carefully turn the glasses over, set the tartlets on the dish.
Tear the lettuce leaves and line the bottom of the tartlets with slices so that they do not get wet. Lay thin circles of cucumbers inside, overlapping. Put in the center a piece of fillet, a slice of boiled egg, a few peas, decorate herring appetizer with a sprig of dill and mayonnaise.
2. Appetizer from potato baskets with herring
Ingredients:
Raw eggs 2 pcs.
Potatoes, peeled 400 g;
Flour 150 g;
Salt;
Lemon juice 50 ml;
Boiled beets 1 pc.
Herring fillet 2 pcs.
Chives 100 g
Lemon (slices) 1 ½ pcs.
Mayonnaise
Fresh cucumber 1-2 pcs.
Onions, pickled (medium size) 2 pcs.
Cooking:
Chopped peeled raw potatoes with thin plates, sprinkle them with lemon juice, so as not to darken. Prepare a lezon from eggs and flour, adding salt to taste.
Fill muffins or disposable foil baskets with grease. Preheat the oven to 180 ° C.
Spread potato plates along the edge of the forms, overlapping, after lowering them into the egg-flour mixture. Bake until cooked. Put the baskets on the dish, fill
3. Appetizer of herring and salmon caviar in "edible dishes"
Ingredients:
Flour 340 g;
Eggs 1 ½ pcs.;
Sour cream 100 g;
Salt
Soda 10 g
Butter 180 g
red and herring caviar, salted - 120-150 g each
green and onion (pickled)
dill (leaves)
Cooking:
Beat eggs and sour cream, adding salt. Combine the sifted flour with soda, mix, and knead the steep dough. Wrap it in a plastic bag briefly, then roll it thinly, cut out the mugs. Place the blanks in the prepared round muffin molds. So that the middle of the baskets does not rise during baking, and then it can be filled with herring appetizer, make small weights, and put them in the center of the baskets when baking. Wrap peas in foil and put these balls in baskets.
Beat butter until white, add herring caviar. Stir the mixture well, drop from a pastry bag into chilled baskets. Sprinkle with chopped green onions.
Cut small pickled onions across, making a zigzag cut with a sharp small knife. Divide the halves of the bulbs, disassemble them into separate integumentary flakes - you will get small “water lilies”. Fill them with red caviar, set on a herring cream, garnish with a sprig of dill.
4. Herring appetizer in pita roll
Products:
Pita 1 pc.
Boiled potatoes 250 g
Mayonnaise 200 g
Lemon juice 100 ml
Chives 250 g
Eggs 6-7 pcs.
Herring fillet 500 g
Cheese, hard 300 g
Cooking:
Grind the green onion, sprinkle it with lemon juice, mix. Spread the tortilla on the working surface, spread the chopped onion over it. Grate potatoes, eggs and cheese. Finely chop the fillet of peeled herring into cubes.
Spread the potatoes over the onion in a thin layer. Cover this layer with mayonnaise. Lay out a layer of herring, then - mayonnaise, eggs and mayonnaise, cheese. Roll the roll, wrap it with cling film. Soak the roll in the refrigerator, then cut into slices.
5. Herring snack in a cucumber
Ingredients:
Large cucumbers (fresh) 7-10 pcs.
Herring fillet 350 g
Mayonnaise
Fresh apple 200 g (net)
Lemon 1 pc.
Onions 120 g
5 eggs
Jacketed potatoes 2-3 pcs.
Cooking:
Onions cut into cubes and soak in lemon juice to remove bitterness. Cut apples into cubes and sprinkle with lemon juice so that they do not darken. Chop the potatoes and eggs. Combine the chopped ingredients, mix and season with mayonnaise.
Cut fresh cucumbers in half. Cut the noses and ponytails, Cut the flesh with a sharp knife with a thin blade to make “empty barrels”. Chop the pulp of cucumbers and add to the salad. Set the "barrels" on the dish, vertically, filling them with cooked salad. Garnish the appetizer with the ingredients from the dish.
6. Herring snack - sandwiches
Ingredients - in equal proportions:
Herring fillet
The apples
Lemon - for dressing onions and apples
Onion
Eggs
Boiled potatoes
Greens - for decoration
Rye bread (crumb)
Cooking:
Grate potatoes and boiled eggs. Finely chop the herring fillet, apples and onions and soak in an acidic lemon solution. Combine the components, mix, season with spices. If desired, mayonnaise can be used.
From the crumb, cut the mugs. Lay the cooked salad on slices of bread, decorate the sandwiches with salad components.
Herring appetizer - useful tips and tricks
You can remove the specific smell of herring with lemon. Sprinkle the peeled fillet with lemon juice and add fresh lemon zest to the marinade. Lemon for these purposes can be replaced with a usual solution of vinegar (100 ml / 1 liter of water).
If the flesh of the herring is loose, which happens when re-freezing fresh fish, then a strong acid solution will also help to fix a minor defect. But such a fish should be carefully examined - if there is a suspicious smell, it is better to throw it away.
If you bought too salty herring, wash it in cold water, and soak for half an hour or an hour in fresh milk, then rinse again with plain water.
When choosing a salty herring in a store, pay attention to the salty solution - it should not be cloudy and red. The carcass of fresh salty herring has a dense and elastic back: when pressed with a finger, there should be no dents. The freshness of herring can be determined by looking at the gills - in fresh fish they have a reddish hue, not brown. The carcass of fresh salty herring has reddish eyes.
The larger the herring, the higher its fat content. The highest fat content in herring is found in colder waters. The best types of commercial herring contain up to 33% fat, a valuable source of essential amino acids.
Many people prefer to choose herring of low or medium salting, but such preferences, if dishonest manufacturers and sellers of salted fish are in bad faith, can be harmful. Remember that too salted fish can be soaked in cold water or other prepared solutions, and it is impossible to remove parasites that multiply rapidly in slightly salted fish. A solution with a salt concentration of at least 15% is harmful to pests.
