How to build a restaurant dish

Pickle... Roast. Brown.. Layer

We are going to talk about herring today.

Come on, this is a Nordic-leaning food blog, preserved fish was gonna happen eventually.

But if you’re on the fence about preserved fish or have had bad experiences in the past, I still think this recipe could bring you round.

And if it doesn’t there’s a few tips here that I think are worth your reading to the end.

It’s a dish of pickled herring called matjes herring. What I like about Nordic matjes herring, and why I recommend it even if you don’t consider herring your thing, is how delicate in flavour it is. Matjes herring here in Sweden and Finland is made from young and mild herring fish, and it is pickled in a sweet brine flavoured with cinnamon, cloves and sandalwood. It is still fishy, but not at all overwhelming. Used in this recipe, it is really well balanced and just the most delicious starter for a special dinner or celebration meal.

Herring and warm potato salad

That balance comes from serving it with warm potato salad, chopped egg, pickled vegetables, hazelnuts and brown butter. This very traditional Swedish-style serving is something we served I think a hundred times a night at Oaxen Slip, the restaurant I introduced you to here.

It is a simple dish but deeply layered. And I think it’s this layering that makes it so lovely. The great Anthony Bourdain wrote that salt and butter were the reason why restaurant food tastes so good. And there’s truth to this, of course. But it’s also true that even “simple” restaurant dishes are the result of many hands sharing work to create something special.

I hope going through this recipe layer by layer we illuminate how this approach makes such special food, and how it can be done at home without too much bother as well.

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Step 1: Pickles

What does “simple” food mean anyway? No one would describe sous vide salmon lips braised in lobster steam as simple. But I can imagine people agreeing simple food has only few ingredients or is quick to make.

I just don’t think this is what simple food means to me.

This herring dish, after all, has plenty going on. It balances richness from sour cream with acidity from the onions. The meaty fish balances texturally with crunchy hazelnuts, cool beetroot and soft egg. Simple, to me, means something a bit more nebulous, maybe something like “honest”. Simple means flavours that are clear and up front in what they bring to each mouthful.

Pickled red onion

And so we start with the pickles. This dish calls for two: red onions and yellow beetroots. Luckily the same pickling liquid can be used for both.

Here’s what you need:

Vinegar 160g (I use the traditional Nordic vinegar called ettika in Finnish (ättika in Swedish). This stuff is so strong it also makes for good window cleaner. You can use cider or wine vinegar if you can’t find ettika, but you’ll need to use 320g and reduce the amount of water used.)
Sugar 240g
Water 500g (300g if you used the larger amount of wine vinegar)
2 large red onions
2 large yellow beetroots

Mix the water and sugar. Get this on a low heat and warm it enough to dissolve. Add the vinegar and let it cool. Meanwhile, slice your onions thinly and add them to half of the cooled pickle liquor, preferably in a clean pickling jar. After 24 hours, at which point they will have turned blushing pink, they’re ready to use.

Cook your beets until they are tender with the skins on. A knife should be able to pierce them quite easily when they’re cooked and the skins should rub away with your fingers. Chop them into quarters or dice them, your preference. Cover them with the cooled pickling liquid as you did the onions. They too should be left to pickle for at least 24 hours before using them.

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Step 2: Potato salad prep

Sour cream (a tbsp per person)
New potatoes (around 2 or 3 per person)
Egg (1 per person)

The night before you want to make this dish, you need to “hang” your sour cream. This is easy enough. Line a sieve with kitchen paper and pour your cream into this. Leave it in the fridge overnight over a bowl. Much liquid will drain away leaving you a fattier, richer sour cream.

Boil your potatoes in lightly salted water with some of the dill stems (if you’ve never done this you’d be surprised how well the flavour transfers). Drain and set aside when tender. We will be re-heating them for service.

As for the egg, you want it to be softly boiled, not runny. “Jammy” is a word I’ve heard to describe the desired texture which I rather like. The way I do this is to put my eggs in hot tap water, bring to a boil and let them cook a further 5 minutes. Then run under cold water to arrest the cooking.

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Step 3: Garnishes prep

Hazelnuts
Dill (fronds pickled and kept cool in fridge lest they wilt)
Chives (chopped finely)
Brown butter
Matjes herring (50g per person)

Roasting nuts
Heat your oven to 200 and roast your nuts on a baking tray. This takes around 10 minutes, but keep an eye on them to be safe and give them a shake to turn them from time to time. They should be turning a golden brown colour when they are ready. If your nuts still have the brown skins on them, the skins should be cracking and peeling off when they are almost ready. Once these are cooled, crush them lightly, you want some big bits, some smaller bits.

Browning butter
Each portion only requires a drizzle, but I suggest you brown more than you need so you have leftovers to enrich other dishes. It keeps well in the fridge. Put it in a saucepan and slowly melt the butter over a medium heat. Keep it moving with a spoon so the caramelising milk solids are constantly turning over and flavouring the molten fat. Eventually the white solids turn yellow, then golden, then edging toward gingernut biscuit brown and I’d say take it off the heat at this point. You should really be able to smell a toasty aroma at this point as well. Put this in a heat proof bowl.

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Step 4: Plating

Chop your potatoes (slices or quarters works fine) and warm them in the oven. Slice your herring fillets into bitesized chunks. Put the boiled egg in a bowl and chop it roughly. Add the sour cream, chives, a pinch of salt and pepper and a forkful of pickled onions. Add the warm potato and mix. Place this on the centre of your serving plate. Warm your brown butter if necessary.

Garnish the potato salad first with a few pieces of the herring, then a few more slices of pickled onion and some beetroot. Sprinkle over some of the hazelnuts and then a teaspoon or so of brown butter. The very last thing is to add a few sprigs of the dill.

That’s the dish.

In the restaurant, up to three different chefs would have had a part in creating the parts of this dish. And then, once service came around, it was 2 more chefs that plated it for service. This in mind, no wonder “simple” restaurant food such as this can taste so layered and so satisfying.

Because, as much as I like herring, it’s these layers I really love. The crunch of the nuts, the toasty brown butter, the zing of the pickles against the rich sour cream. If you have no intention of finding matjes herring, I hope you consider how you might use these other elements when you are cooking next. The pickles are great on top of chilli and stews. The brown butter is delicious poured over poached salmon or cod, as would be a sprinkle of the nuts.

Cooking is not unlike a language, really. And these “layers” make for very delicious turns of phrase.