Herring Appetizer on Toasted Bread

Name: Herring Appetizer on Toasted Bread with Pickles and Onion
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 30 min
Cuisine: European
Ingredients: "Matias"-cured herring 4; Whole grain bread 4 slices; Red onion 1; Pickled vegetables (gherkins, garlic, etc.) 100 g; Capers 1 tsp (optional) (3 g); Sunflower oil 1 tbsp; Black pepper to taste; Lemon, chili pepper, lettuce for serving

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30 mins

If you want to vary and dress up a holiday table, a simple herring appetizer is a dish that will please everyone. Salted herring is a self-sufficient dish on its own, and even a folk one. But with a few additions you can make a tasty cold salad or a filling for sandwiches. And it’s easy and quick.

Many European cuisines have salads made from salted herring, mackerel and other fish. Scandinavians love such appetizers in particular. As a rule, the recipes are well established and traditional. Once I really liked the way they were served: slices of fish, onion, and pickled and brined vegetables were laid out on a big slice of toasted bread.

Salted herring usually goes well with red and green onion and a vinaigrette-style dressing of oil and vinegar. Sometimes herbs and pickled gherkins work nicely too. In southern Europe they add capers, pickled garlic scapes and apples to such salads, which makes a really surprising range of flavors, and boiled potatoes as well. Still, potatoes boiled in their skins are best served with herring and onion – as a side dish.

In most cases, salted herring for salads and appetizers is soaked first, because it may be too salty. Here, though, you can buy fish to your taste. I confess I have never soaked herring before cooking: I simply buy the kind I need. And accordingly, I never add salt to salads with salted fish. Another feature of homemade herring salads is that the dressing is always sunflower oil with a little vinegar. The exception is herring under a fur coat, which is made with mayonnaise.

Ordinary Atlantic herring, big silvery fish with a dark back, is too firm, and I use it only for finely chopped salads. I really like what we call the “matias” cure. I don’t know whether it matches the Dutch Maatjes cure, but this herring is very tasty: the flesh is tender and fatty and comes off the bones easily, so the appetizer turns out excellent.

What can I say, we love herring here. Practically everyone does. I personally know a man who adores sweet cake and salted iwashi at the same time. Salads often include boiled meat, fruit, pickled cucumbers and other ingredients. The most important thing is not to overpower the flavor of the fish. This applies first of all to mayonnaise: an appetizer that tastes of mayonnaise is not rare. Once my daughter suggested adding gherkins and capers to the herring, and it turned out very tasty and unusual.

More with herring

Chopped Herring Forshmak with Butter

30 min

Herring Appetizer with Onion

20 min

Herring Under a Fur Coat Salad

1 h 30 min

Vinegret with Herring (Beet and Potato Salad)

1 h

Herring Salad with Potatoes, Apple and Capers

45 min

More herring recipes

Ingredients

4 servings

“Matias”-cured herring 4
Whole grain bread 4 slices
Red onion 1
Pickled vegetables (gherkins, garlic, etc.) 100 g
Capers 1 tsp (optional) (3 g)
Sunflower oil 1 tbsp
Black pepper to taste
Lemon, chili pepper, lettuce for serving

Step-by-step recipe

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Preparing the bread and herring

The herring appetizer turns out exceptionally tasty if the fish is lightly salted and fatty. Ideally, buy small headless fish with very soft flesh. Atlantic herring is larger and less fatty, so it’s better to use the “people’s” iwashi. Strictly speaking, those are not herring but sardines. Pickled vegetables are up to you. Gherkins or simply brined cucumbers work well, as do pickled young garlic scapes and capers, which you need only a little of.
Don’t use very dark bread, malted or scalded. Pure rye bread is fine: it isn’t black, but it’s dark enough. Soft whole grain bread or various kinds of Tuscan bread made from a mix of wheat and rye flour will also do.
Toast the bread ahead of time. Cut it into large, thin slices. Toast them on a grill or in a grill pan over medium heat until lightly crisp and browned. Then let the bread cool.
Clean the herring. Gut the fish very thoroughly, remove the dark membrane lining the inside of the belly, and take off the skin. Remove the fins, separate the fillets from the backbone and pick out all the bones, especially the tiny ones. The herring appetizer is made only from cleaned fillets.

Mixing the salad

Cut the onion and pickled vegetables. Peel the onion and cut it into the thinnest possible strips. By the way, the inner part of the onion can be left out: it doesn’t cut into strips and gets chopped quite coarsely. Cut the prepared pickled vegetables into thin, almost transparent slices.
Assemble the salad in a bowl. In a large bowl, fluff up the thinly sliced onion. Add the pickled vegetables and, if you like, 1 tsp of capers (3 g). Season the salad generously with freshly ground black pepper. Cut the herring fillets diagonally into thin strips, 10-15 mm wide if you like.
Mix everything and dress with oil. As I said, no salt is needed. Add 1 tbsp of sunflower oil and stir. The herring appetizer is quite aromatic and has a delicate flavor. Don’t add a vinegar dressing. You can add a little thinly sliced fresh chili pod if you want a mildly hot taste. But it’s better to just put it on the plate: whoever wants it will eat it.

Serving

Put the appetizer on the bread. Lay a few leaves of lettuce or other salad greens on a large plate. It’s better to cut large pieces of toasted bread in half. Put the toast on the lettuce leaves and spoon the herring salad on top. The result looks more like bruschetta with fish and pickled vegetables. Add a thin slice of lemon to each piece.
Serve the appetizer at room temperature, when the flavor of the fish comes through best. It goes well with an aperitif, strong drinks, or simply as a reason to have a snack.

Calories and macros

605 kcal

Serving ≈ 260 g

Protein30 g21% of kcal
Fat37 g57% of kcal
Carbs33 g22% of kcal

100 g229 kcalProtein 11.5 gFat 14 gCarbs 12.3 g

Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.

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