Chef Juliette
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Beurres et crèmes d’hors-d’œuvre prove that cold-table finesse is mostly timing: smooth good dairy, cover it closely, hold it cool, then season only as you dish so every spoonful keeps a clean edge.
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Salad of Filleted Salted Herrings
Created by Chef Juliette
Salted herring, properly soaked and kept whole, wears a pale sauce of mayonnaise, soft roe, vinegar, onion, and fine herbs: a cold hors-d'oeuvre whose strength is disciplined balance.
Salads
French
Make Ahead
Dinner Party
45 min
Active Time
0 min cook•13 hr 45 min total
Yield4 servings
Salade de filets de harengs salés (salad of filleted salted herrings) teaches restraint through desalting. Before you touch a knife, know the one true thing: the clock cannot tell you when a cured herring is ready, your tongue must. Soak until the salt has softened enough to let the fish taste of itself, not until it becomes bland. There is no pan here, only judgment.
The original entry assumed whole salted male herrings, a cold larder, mayonnaise already made, and enough diners to absorb a sauce built from eight soft roes. For four servings, the sauce is halved exactly to four roes, one tablespoon of vinegar, and two tablespoons of mayonnaise. A refrigerator, a fine sieve, and a small whisk replace the cold pantry and spare hands. Filleting is brigade scaffolding and may be entrusted to a fishmonger, provided the whole fillets and soft roes come home together. The soaking, roe purée, and masking sauce are the dish and must stay.
Done properly, the fillets remain firm and pearly beneath a pale, herb-flecked sauce with acidity, gentle heat, and the deep marine savor of the roe. One cook, one stove left cold, one evening, once the fish has soaked. Taste during that soak. It is the step that decides everything.
Salade de filets de harengs salés belongs to the cold hors-d'oeuvre repertoire of northern France and Paris, its pantry supplied by Channel curing ports such as Boulogne-sur-Mer and Fécamp. Salting carried herring inland, while classical kitchens transformed the preserved fish by skinning, soaking, trimming, and masking it with an emulsion rather than hiding it with sweetness. Soft roe is milt from the male fish, not eggs, and using it to deepen the mayonnaise carries the thrifty intelligence of the coastal table into a composed salad.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
whole ready-to-eat salt-cured male herrings
Quantity
4 (about 1 lb 12 oz / 800 g total)
filleted whole and skinned, with 4 soft roes reserved
cold water
Quantity
About 7 quarts (6.6 L / 6.6 kg)
divided, for soaking
white wine vinegar
Quantity
1 tablespoon (15 ml / 15 g)
thick plain mayonnaise
Quantity
2 tablespoons (30 ml / 28 g)
yellow onion
Quantity
1 tablespoon (15 ml / 10 g)
very finely chopped
flat-leaf parsley
Quantity
2 teaspoons (10 ml / 2 g)
finely chopped
chervil
Quantity
2 teaspoons (10 ml / 1 g)
finely chopped
chives
Quantity
2 teaspoons (10 ml / 2 g)
finely chopped
tarragon leaves
Quantity
1 teaspoon (5 ml / 1 g)
finely chopped
cayenne pepper
Quantity
1 small pinch (about 1/16 teaspoon / 0.15 g)
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| whole ready-to-eat salt-cured male herringsfilleted whole and skinned, with 4 soft roes reserved | 4 (about 1 lb 12 oz / 800 g total) |
| cold waterdivided, for soaking | About 7 quarts (6.6 L / 6.6 kg) |
| white wine vinegar | 1 tablespoon (15 ml / 15 g) |
| thick plain mayonnaise | 2 tablespoons (30 ml / 28 g) |
| yellow onionvery finely chopped | 1 tablespoon (15 ml / 10 g) |
| flat-leaf parsleyfinely chopped | 2 teaspoons (10 ml / 2 g) |
| chervilfinely chopped | 2 teaspoons (10 ml / 1 g) |
| chivesfinely chopped | 2 teaspoons (10 ml / 2 g) |
| tarragon leavesfinely chopped | 1 teaspoon (5 ml / 1 g) |
| cayenne pepper | 1 small pinch (about 1/16 teaspoon / 0.15 g) |
Equipment Needed
- •Flexible filleting knife
- •Fish-bone tweezers
- •Fine-mesh sieve
- •Small whisk
- •25 cm shallow oval platter
Instructions
- 1
Fillet the herrings
Rinse the outside of each herring briefly and pat it dry. Open the belly, lift out the soft roe intact, and keep it cold in a separate bowl. Remove the head, then run a flexible knife closely along the backbone and lift off both fillets whole. Pull any remaining pin bones with tweezers. Loosen the skin at the tail and peel it toward the head, keeping the flesh intact. Do not trim the fillets yet; their thin edges protect them during soaking.
If a fishmonger will supply eight whole, skinned fillets and four soft roes, accept gladly. The knife work is scaffolding, but the roes are essential to the sauce. - 2
Soak by taste
Lay the fillets in a nonreactive container and cover them with about 2 quarts of cold water. Cover the roes separately with about 2 cups of cold water. Refrigerate throughout. Drain the roes after 1 hour; if a tiny taste remains fiercely saline, soak them for another 30 minutes. Change the fillets' water after 4 hours and again after 8 hours, then taste a sliver from the thickest part. They should remain assertively seasoned without making the throat prickle. If they are still too salty, give them fresh water for another hour and taste again. The fish decides when it is ready.
- 3
Trim and dish
Drain the fillets and roes, then pat both thoroughly dry. Trim away ragged belly edges, fin remnants, tail tips, and any dark membrane, leaving the fillets whole as the source directs. Arrange them in two slightly overlapping rows on a chilled oval platter, alternating the thick ends for an even shape. Cover and return the platter to the refrigerator while you make the sauce. Drying matters: water left on the fish thins the emulsion and makes it slide away.
- 4
Purée the roes
Remove any coarse membrane from the four soft roes. Press them through a fine-mesh sieve with the back of a spoon, scraping the smooth purée from underneath. Stir the white wine vinegar into the purée until evenly loosened but still thick. Do not add more liquid; this ratio, four roes to one tablespoon of vinegar, is the exact half-scale of the original formula.
- 5
Build the emulsion
Reserve 1 teaspoon of the measured mayonnaise and place the remainder in a small bowl. Whisk in the roe and vinegar purée a spoonful at a time so the mayonnaise keeps its body. Fold in the onion, parsley, chervil, chives, and tarragon, then add the cayenne cautiously. It should warm the finish without announcing itself. If the sauce loosens or shows oil at the rim, stop. Ça se rattrape: put the reserved mayonnaise in a clean bowl and whisk the broken sauce into it slowly, one spoonful at a time. If the sauce remains stable, simply fold in the reserved teaspoon.
- 6
Masquer and chill
Masquer (to cloak) the fillets by spooning the sauce evenly along their length, covering the flesh while leaving their shape visible. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour so the onion softens and the herbs settle into the emulsion. Bring the platter out 10 minutes before serving; it should be properly cold, not numb. Serve the fillets whole with dark bread alongside. À table!
Chef Tips
- •Ask specifically for male salt-cured herrings with the soft roes intact. Soft roe is milt, not the firm egg-filled roe of a female fish. Hard roe, extra mayonnaise, and fish paste do not reproduce this sauce; they make different dishes.
- •Use herring sold as fully cured and ready to eat, not fresh fish given a casual sprinkling of salt. Keep the fish and roes refrigerated during soaking, and follow any safety or soaking directions supplied by the fishmonger.
- •The soaking time is a range because cures differ. Taste after each water change. Under-soaked herring can return to fresh water, but herring leached to blandness cannot recover its character.
- •Chervil must be gentle and tarragon quieter still. If fresh chervil is unavailable, frozen chopped chervil, thawed and blotted dry, is more faithful than dried leaves.
- •Serve this as a cold first course with dark bread and a northern bière de garde. The vinegar makes a timid wine taste thin, while the beer meets the herring with enough malt and bitterness.
Advance Preparation
- •Fillet and begin soaking the herrings the evening before serving. Once properly desalinated, the dried fillets and roes may be covered separately and refrigerated for up to 24 hours.
- •The finished salad benefits from 1 to 4 hours in the refrigerator and may be assembled up to a day ahead. After that, the herbs lose their freshness and the onion begins to dominate.
- •Keep the finished dish at or below 40°F / 4°C and return leftovers promptly to the refrigerator. Eat them within 2 days; this salad does not freeze.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 145g)
Calories
310 calories
Total Fat
24 g
Saturated Fat
5 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
17 g
Cholesterol
115 mg
Sodium
1200 mg
Total Carbohydrates
1 g
Dietary Fiber
0 g
Sugars
0 g
Protein
23 g
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