We aim to recreate the taste of Nordic summer in our 5-course “smørrebrød” menu for the food festival, Copenhagen Cooking 2014. You will find the recipe for the home-salted herrings with honey and sea buckthorn at the bottom of this page – or in the August edition of foodie magazine, MAD & VENNER (in Danish).
“Few things are more iconic than “smørrebrød”, a beer in the large glass and an aquavit in the small glass,” writes the popular foodie magazine, MAD & VENNER, in their August edition.
MAD & VENNER publishes the recipes for the 5-course “smørrebrød” menu we have created for the food festival, Copenhagen Cooking 2014 – perfect for a relaxed lunch with friends.
Find MAD & VENNER at your news agent’s, read the recipe below or enjoy the delicious herring for a pleasant lunch at Restaurant Kronborg during Copenhagen Cooking 2014.
Recipe for home-salted herring marinated in honey and sea buckthorn
Ingredients:
4 herrings, home-salted (please see below) or the best you can buy
4 slices of dark rye bread & duck lard
Herbs
2 red onions, finely chopped
2 tea spoons ground allspice
10 whole cloves
1 dl whole sea buckthorn berries (it is fine to use frozen ones)
Pickle
3 dl water
4 dl vinegar
3 dl sugar
1 dl blossom honey, preferably acacia
Garnish
Slices of red onion
Fresh dill
Place the herrings in a bowl with plenty of cold water, cover with cling film and place the bowl in the fridge for 24 hours.
Pour the ingredients for the pickle into a pot and put it to the boil. Turn off the heat and leave the pickle to cool in the fridge.
Rinse the salt of the herrings, peel off the skin and part the fillets from the bones.
Cut the herring fillets into pieces of 4-5 centimetres.
Layer the pieces of herring with the herbs in a container or bowl. Pour the pickle over the herrings. Cover the container/bowl with cling film and place it in the fridge for minimum 48 hours before you serve the herring.
Arrange the pieces of bread, buttered with the duck lard.
Garnish with slices of red onion and the fresh dill.
Salted herrings
If you prefer to salt your own herrings, like we do at Restaurant Kronborg, you cut heads and tails of four herrings and place them in a plastic container covered with plenty of salt.
Place the herrings in a dark, cool place, e.g. a fridge, for three months.
This way you get juicy, salted herrings with “bite”.
Drinks
We recommend a fresh, tangy sea buckthorn akvavit and a crisp, slightly bitter New York Lager with a touch of flowers from local artisan brewery, Nørrebro Bryghus, for the herrings.
This recipe was originally published in the food magazine MAD & VENNER in August 2014 (in Danish).
Photo by Martin Kaufmann