We have a lovely local fish man who parks his little van up at our local garage every Thursday – and always has something tempting to share

last thursday Matt was given the job of fetching some fresh localness & arrived home with 6 herring fillets – for sheer pennies!

but i have little knowledge of herring – past the rollmop variety – so we decided, since rollmops are Matts lunch of choice – we should try our own

i had a scarper across the internet and came across a recipe by Mr Fearnley-Whitingstall in the guardian

i adapted it a little but stuck to the general gist 🙂

potted herring

6 fresh herring fillets

rind of one orange – try to take as little white as possible

1 small onion finely sliced

1 spoon of whole grain mustard

4 black pepper corns

4 juniper berries

1 spoon of dark brown sugar

3 bay leaves

250ml cider vinegar

125ml of cider

firstly check you herring fillets for any visible pins bones and remove

( clean eye brown tweezers do the job lol )

then soak the fillets in a salted water leaving for a couple of hours

meanwhile, make the vinegarette

pop all the remaining ingredients into a saucepan and bring to a gentle bowl – stirring gently to melt the sugar!

allow to simmer for a few minutes before removing from the heat and cooling

after approximately 2 hours – once your marinade is cool – remove your herring fillets from the salt water and dab dry with kitchen towel

then roll your fillets up – skin outwards – and pop into your kilner jar / Tupperware or whatever you are using

pour your marinade over the rolled fillets – making sure you poke lotsa yummy bits down the sides and into the roll mops! then cover the tops with the remaining liquid ( i poured more in after this photo )

seal it up

 

and pop ’em in the fridge

Hugh says to leave them in for anything between 3 days and a month

i am holding out for 7 – 10 days

tomorrow is day 7 😀

must hunt out some rye bread and sour cream!