Norwegian herring is a favorite fish of the people. In cold, clear waters, it grows softer and fatter. These properties significantly affect the taste. There is no full-fledged table on a holiday when you cannot find a Norwegian herring on this table, cooked with love and according to a recipe tested by time. So that our table always delights with the presence of such a magnificent, albeit simple, snack, we urgently select the best way to salting the fish.
Where to get her?
Before testing instructions for salting Norwegian herring, we will select the best specimens. It is unlikely that you will easily be able to get (catch) a fish if you do not live in the immediate vicinity of its place of deployment - in Norway. And this means that it’s time to go to the store, which has proven itself well. Here we get Norwegian herring in frozen form.
Herring Contest
And here are the criteria by which raw materials should be selected for a future snack:
- If you see a fish that has a uniform color, going into the range of steel, with a dense, but not swollen light abdomen, most likely you will see Norwegian herring of good quality.
- Pay attention to the eyes and gills. Eyes are whitish. Gills in a carcass of a light shade.
- The skin should be without damage and yellowish stripes. Their presence indicates a long storage of fish in inappropriate conditions. It is also likely that it was frozen more than once.
An important condition when buying any fish - do not take the one that went on sale without a head. There is a high probability of throwing money away.
Proper defrosting
Before salting the Norwegian herring at home, it has to be thawed. And even if you want to quickly start testing the salting recipe, you should be patient. For this reason, we immediately discard the idea of using a microwave oven for the procedure. Hot and even slightly warm water is also prohibited. Slow defrosting remains in the refrigerator. This method is the most gentle not only for the appearance of the fish: the taste with the benefit of the final product will significantly benefit from competent defrosting.
So, we put the dishes with fish in the refrigerator for 8-15 hours. After the fish has thawed, we proceed to salting.
Norwegian herring salting
Products are based on a half-kilogram carcass of a fish. Before you begin to practice, you should weigh your thawed herring and calculate the exact number of components:
- herring - 500 grams;
- coarse salt, without iodine - 5 tablespoons;
- sugar - 2 tablespoons;
- water - 1.5 liters;
- allspice black (peas) - 5-8 pieces;
- leaves of parsley - 2-4.
Walkthrough Cooking
You just need to salt the herring using the instructions below.
- Rinse thawed carcass in cold water.
- Cut the gills, but do not touch the abdomen and offal. So the product will retain more juice.
- Pour water into a saucepan and put on the stove. Add salt, sugar and bay leaf with pepper to it. Boil over low heat for no more than a minute. At the same time, make sure that the crystals of sugar and salt are completely dissolved in the future brine. Cool the resulting liquid.
- In a suitable container we put herring on a barrel. Now fill the fish with cold marinade. If, for any reason, well, you managed to pick up a container so that in the end the fish disappeared completely in brine, that's okay. In the process (for some time) turn the herring from one side to the other. The procedure promotes uniform salting of the carcass. But in no case do not dilute the resulting solution: a decrease in its concentration will cause the mustiness of the fish.
- The complete salting process is three days. However, on the second day after immersion in brine, you can try herring. If the taste already suits you, feel free to take it out and eat it to your health.
Lightly salted Norwegian herring
Salted fish is liked not only by adults, but also children (in reasonable quantities) can be treated with it. Component List:
- two large fishes;
- sugar - 3 tablespoons;
- salt - 2 tablespoons;
- water - 1 \ 2 liters;
- vinegar 9% - 20 milliliters;
- spices to taste (these include peppercorns and bay leaves).
Instruction manual
Pour water into an enameled container and bring to a boil on the stove. When the liquid begins to release small bubbles, add salt and sugar. Throw pepper with bay leaf into the brine and subject them to moderate boiling for two minutes. At the end of boiling, pour the entire vinegar rate indicated in the recipe. The brine is ready. Cool it completely.
To get a tasty snack, as in the photo, we wash the Norwegian herring in cold water, but do not clean it from the insides. We place in a suitable dish. You can even use a glass jar. Fill the herring with brine and, having covered with a lid, set in a cold place for a day.
Dry ambassador
The method of such salting is recognized as the most effortless. We will test it in order to verify this personally. Product Range:
- Norwegian herring - 2 copies;
- 2 tablespoons of coarse salt;
- sugar - 1 tablespoon;
- ground pepper and other spices suitable for fish are allowed to taste.
We wash the thawed carcasses of herring. Cut off the head. Gutting the insides. Then we remove the skin from each carcass of herring. Take out the bones and the ridge.
Mix salt, spices and sugar in one bowl.
We lay the resulting fillets in a bowl and sprinkle evenly with a dry pickling mixture. Now let’s ripen for 7-8 hours at room temperature. After this time, we place the fish fillet in the refrigerator, and there he needs to stay another forty-eight hours.
Dry ambassador with pepper and bay leaf
Use a strong plastic bag for salting. What you need from the products:
- 1 medium herring;
- sugar - a teaspoon;
- salt - a tablespoon with a slide;
- laurel leaf;
- a mixture of peppers to taste;
- optionally - dry dill, coriander.
How to cook
Rinse the defrosted fish in cold water and remove its excess from the surface of the carcass. Then cut off the head of the herring. Leave the innards intact.
We put the carcass of the fish in a clean package. Sprinkle with sugar and salt. We also pour other spices into the bag that we decided to use in salting the Norwegian herring.
Shake the package in order to evenly distribute the mixture of salt, sugar and spices. Tie not very tight. We place the fish so packed in any flat container with sides. We put in the refrigerator to continue the process. Periodically, it will be necessary to stir herring: turn over for better salting. After three days, we remove the finished herring from the refrigerator. We clean the insides from the carcass. Cut, as usual, and taste the finished snack.
You can save ready-made salted herring for no longer than seven days in the refrigerator. If necessary, fish can be frozen. In this case, the shelf life is increased to a month. Before use, frozen salted herring should be thawed in a refrigerator.