Spiced Herring Salted in Brine

Spiced salting differs from ordinary salting not in the set of spices but in the fact that the fish lies in liquid. The brine penetrates evenly, so the herring is never oversalted on the sides and raw in the middle — but you pay for that with precision: the temperature of the brine matters more here than the amount of pepper.

The brine is poured on only when it is completely cold. Warm brine coagulates the protein under the skin, and the outer layer of the flesh turns boiled-white before the salt has reached the backbone. There is no fixing this — you'll have to eat the fish as it is.

The vinegar goes in after the brine has been taken off the heat. In boiling water most of it evaporates, and the acid that keeps the fish firm simply won't be there in the brine.

Here the fish lies in liquid for a full day; the opposite approach, dry salt washed off after an hour, is salting mackerel in pieces in oil. In smoked Baltic herring at home the salting isn't the dish at all but the step that has to come before the smoke.

Caloric content: 190kcal

Notes

• Salt and sugar in equal parts. A hundred grams to a hundred: the sugar isn't there for sweetness, it softens the harshness of the salt and keeps the flesh dense.
• Twenty-four hours in the cold, no longer. After that the fish starts taking up too much salt, and the fillet turns dry and brittle.
• Break the fish down after salting, not before. The salt goes through a whole carcass evenly; a cut-up fillet will be oversalted in the same twenty-four hours.
• Allspice and black pepper go in together. They are different spices with different aromas, and in a spiced brine they work as a pair rather than replacing one another.
• Onion and oil are added just before serving. They have nothing to do in the brine — the oil would simply coat the fish with a film and get in the way of the salt.

Questions and Answers

Why can't the fish be covered with warm brine?

Warm brine coagulates the protein under the skin, and the outer layer of the flesh turns boiled-white before the salt has reached the backbone. There is no fixing this afterwards.

Why so much sugar in the brine?

A hundred grams to a hundred grams of salt isn't there for sweetness. The sugar softens the harshness of the salt and keeps the flesh dense.

Why is the vinegar poured in after boiling?

In boiling water most of it evaporates, and the acid that keeps the fish firm simply won't be there in the brine.

How long should the herring stay in the brine?

Twenty-four hours in the cold, no longer. After that the fish starts taking up too much salt, and the fillet turns dry and brittle.

Recipe and step-by-step photos — kolizhanka.net.ua.