Herring is found in three oceans, but on the Russian table it is a favorite, almost always, a mandatory snack, and it does not matter which coast it was caught from, but the correct ambassador and well-chosen ingredients are important for salad, sandwiches, forshmak, canapes and other snack dishes.
Herring Snacks - Basic Technological Principles
Snacks are served before the main dishes, any holiday 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.
A common herring can decorate the table as well as a “noble” fish, if you add a little creative imagination to your culinary skills. But first you need to choose the best and high-quality main ingredient - the most important thing in the herring is the correct ambassador.
It is the easiest way to prepare the main ingredient for a herring snack just to buy a well-fed salty carcass, with dense flesh, pleasant fresh smell, characteristic of salted fish. 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 - marinade for simple salting of any fresh-frozen fish. If cloves, allspice, and other spices are added to this marinade, the herring's taste will significantly improve, and, in fact, the spicy salted herring is already a wonderful and self-contained snack, which can only be peeled, cut and decorated with greens or other ingredients that are perfect with it. are combined.
Before salting the fish can not plastast, and not even remove the insides, but be sure to remove the gills - this is the most dangerous source of spread of infection. No wonder they say that the fish is rotting from the head. Fish in saline solution can be stored for a long time in the refrigerator, in a sealed container.
Salted herring is the main ingredient of snack salads, which have already become traditional dishes. Salads with herring are served as ordinary salads, their components are spread in layers, in portions or in a large dish. Herring snacks are made in different ways: sandwiches, canapés, rolls, dough tartlets, potatoes, cheese - these are the simplest options for serving herring snacks available to any housewife. Addition to the salted herring can serve a variety of products: boiled or fried potatoes, cucumbers, apples, beets, carrots, green and onions, cheese, eggs, avocados - the list can be expanded to your liking, but even these components are enough to surprise guests a variety of herring snacks, never repeating.
1. Appetizer design: cheese herring tartlets
Ingredients:
Hard cheese 500 g;
Lettuce leaves
Salted herring fillet 1 pc.
2-3 fresh cucumber
Mayonnaise
3-4 eggs boiled eggs
Green Peas Marinated 200 g
Dill (leaves)
Cooking:
Grate the cheese, put the glasses or other dishes, of suitable shape and size, upside down on the table in advance. Prepare the brush to grease the pan and the bottom of the glasses.
Pour the grated cheese on a heated pan with a thin layer, and as soon as it is melted, put the cake on a glass so that its edges hang down the sides. Wait until the “cheese dish” hardens, carefully turn the glasses over, place the tartlets on the dish.
Tear the lettuce leaves, and line up the bottom of the tartlets so that they do not soak. Place thin cucumber circles overlapping inside. Place in the center a piece of fillet, a slice of boiled egg, several peas, decorate the herring snack with a sprig of dill and mayonnaise.
2. Snack 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.
Green onions 100g
Lemon (slices) 1 1/2 pcs.
Mayonnaise
Cucumber fresh 1-2 pcs.
Onions, pickled (medium size) 2 pcs.
Cooking:
Peeled raw potatoes chop thin slices, sprinkle them with lemon juice, so as not to darken. Cook eggson with eggs and flour, adding salt to taste.
Cupcake molds or disposable foil baskets grease. Preheat oven to 180 ° C.
Lay out potato plates on the edge of the forms, overlap, first dropping them into the egg-flour mixture. Bake until done. Put the baskets on the dish, fill
3. Snack of herring and salmon caviar in “edible dishes”
Ingredients:
Flour 340 g;
Eggs 1 1/2 pcs .;
Sour cream 100 g;
Salt
Soda 10 g
Butter 180 g
red and herring roe, salted - 120-150 g each
green and bulb onions (pickled)
dill (leaves)
Cooking:
Beat the eggs and sour cream by adding salt. Combine the sifted flour with soda, mix, and knead the dough. Wrap it in a plastic bag for a while, then roll it out thinly, cut out the mugs. Place the blanks in prepared round muffins. So that the middle of the baskets does not rise during the baking process, and then it could be filled with herring snack, 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 the butter until white, add herring roe. Mix well the mass, deposit it from the pastry bag into the cooled baskets. Sprinkle with chopped green onions.
Cut marinated onions of a small size across, making a zigzag slit with a sharp small knife. Divide the halves of the bulbs, disassemble into separate cover scales - small “water lilies” will be obtained. Fill them with red caviar, set on herring cream, garnish with a sprig of dill.
4. Herring snack in pita from pita
Products:
Lavash 1 pc.
Boiled potatoes 250 g
Mayonnaise 200g
Lemon juice 100 ml
Green onions 250g
Eggs 6-7 pcs.
Herring fillet 500 g
Cheese, hard 300 g
Cooking:
Crush the green onions, sprinkle it with lemon juice, mix. Spread the cake on the working surface, spread the chopped onion over it. Grate potatoes, eggs and cheese. Finely chop the fillets of peeled herring.
Spread the potatoes over the onion, thinly. Cover this layer with mayonnaise. Put 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 plates.
5. Snack from herring in cucumber
Ingredients:
Large cucumbers (fresh) 7-10 pcs.
Herring fillet 350 g
Mayonnaise
Fresh apple 200g (net)
Lemon 1 pc.
Onions 120g
Eggs 5 pcs.
Potatoes in uniforms 2-3 pieces.
Cooking:
Onions cut into cubes and soak in lemon juice to remove bitterness. Apples, also cut into cubes and sprinkle with lemon juice so as not to darken. Chop the potatoes and eggs. Combine the cut components, mix and season with mayonnaise.
Fresh cucumbers cut across, in half. Cut off the noses and tails, Cut out the flesh with a sharp knife with a thin blade to make “empty kegs”. Chop the cucumber pulp and add to the salad. Place the “kegs” on the dish, vertically, filling them with cooked salad. Decorate the snack with ingredients from the dish.
6. Herring Snack - Sandwiches
Ingredients - in equal proportions:
Herring fillet
Apples
Lemon - for onions and apples
Onion
Eggs
Boiled potatoes
Greens - for decoration
Rye Bread (Crumb)
Cooking:
Grate potatoes and boiled eggs. Herring fillet, apples and onions finely chopped and soak in a sour lemon solution. Combine components, mix, season with spices. Optionally, you can use mayonnaise.
Cut the mugs out of the breadcrumbs. Place the cooked salad in slices of bread, decorate the sandwiches with the ingredients of the salad.
Herring Appetizer - Tips and Tricks
You can remove the specific smell of herring with the help of lemon. Sprinkle the peeled fillet with lemon juice, add fresh lemon zest to the marinade. Lemon for this purpose can be replaced with a regular solution of vinegar (100 ml / 1 l of water).
If the herring pulp is loose, which happens when fresh fish is frozen again, then a strong acidic solution will also help to correct a minor defect. But such fish should be carefully examined - if there is a suspicious odor, it is better to throw it away.
If you bought too salted herring, wash it in cold water, and soak for half an hour or an hour in fresh milk, then rinse again with plain water. Choosing salted herring in the store, pay attention to the salted solution - it should not be muddy and red. A fresh and salted herring carcass has a dense and elastic back: when you press it with your finger, there should be no dents. Herring freshness can be determined by looking at the gills - in fresh fish, they have a reddish tint, not brown. Freshly salted herring has reddish eyes.
The larger the herring, the higher its fat content. The highest fat content of herring, which is produced 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 weak or medium salted salmon, but such preferences, with unfair observance of sanitary standards by producers and sellers of salted fish, can harm health. Remember that too salty fish can be soaked in cold water or other prepared solutions, and it is impossible to remove parasites that multiply rapidly in salted fish. A solution with a salt concentration of at least 15% is detrimental to harmful organisms.
