Chef Freja
Kryddersild
The spiced herring of the Danish julefrokost, cured for weeks in a brine of allspice and clove. Served cold on dark rugbrod with sour cream, raw red onion rings, and whole capers alongside.
Culinary Explorer
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Karrysild
Created by Chef Freja
Pickled herring in a warm yellow curry dressing with apple and shallot, piled on buttered rugbrod and finished with egg and cress. A Copenhagen lunch counter classic, better the day after you make it.
Sandwiches & Wraps
Danish
Weeknight
Dinner Party
Make Ahead
20 min
Active Time
10 min cook•4 hr 30 min total
Yield4 pieces
Every Danish lunch table has a bowl of karrysild somewhere on it. At Easter it sits between the marinated herring and the smoked eel. At Christmas it shares the board with liver pate and pickled red cabbage. On a Tuesday in February it turns up at the frokostrestaurant in Copenhagen where office workers have been eating the same three pieces of smorrebrod for forty years. This dish doesn't belong to a season. It belongs to the lunch, and the Danish lunch belongs to every season.
Karrysild is pickled herring folded into a creamy curry dressing with apple and shallot, then piled on buttered rugbrod with slices of hard-boiled egg and a tuft of fresh cress on top. The flavor is cool and gently warm at once, the curry rounded and sweet rather than sharp, the fish silky against the dark bread. It's one of the easiest pieces of smorrebrod to make and one of the most satisfying, and the good news for the cook is that almost all the work happens the day before you serve it.
Pay attention to two things. First, toast the curry powder before it goes into the dressing. Thirty seconds in a dry pan and it wakes up completely. Raw curry powder tastes flat, and karrysild made with raw curry powder tastes flat with it. Second, let the salad rest. At least four hours, overnight if you can. Karrysild made and eaten in the same hour is three ingredients. Karrysild that has rested is one dish. The joy of waiting is real here, and you'll know when it's right the moment you taste a spoonful the next morning straight from the fridge.
Curry powder arrived in Denmark through the colonial spice trade in the late 1700s, when Danish ships were active in the Indian Ocean and returned to Copenhagen with turmeric, coriander, and cumin among their cargo. By the late 1800s, mild curry had become a quiet fixture of the Danish pantry, turning up in dishes like boller i karry and eventually in the herring preparations of the frokostrestaurant kitchens. Karrysild as it is eaten today, with apple and creme fraiche in the dressing, was codified in the early 20th century by the smorrebrodsjomfru, the formally trained women of the Danish cold kitchen, who added it to the standardized grammar of the herring course where it has remained ever since.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
marinated pickled herring fillets
Quantity
250g
drained
mayonnaise
Quantity
100g
creme fraiche
Quantity
100g
mild curry powder
Quantity
2 teaspoons
Dijon mustard
Quantity
1 teaspoon
caster sugar
Quantity
1 teaspoon
crisp tart apple
Quantity
1 small
peeled and finely diced
shallot
Quantity
1 small
finely diced
capers
Quantity
1 tablespoon
drained and roughly chopped
fine sea salt
Quantity
to taste
white pepper
Quantity
freshly ground, to taste
dark rugbrod
Quantity
4 thick slices
unsalted butter
Quantity
for the bread
softened
hard-boiled eggs
Quantity
2
peeled and sliced
fresh garden cress
Quantity
small handful
to finish
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| marinated pickled herring filletsdrained | 250g |
| mayonnaise | 100g |
| creme fraiche | 100g |
| mild curry powder | 2 teaspoons |
| Dijon mustard | 1 teaspoon |
| caster sugar | 1 teaspoon |
| crisp tart applepeeled and finely diced | 1 small |
| shallotfinely diced | 1 small |
| capersdrained and roughly chopped | 1 tablespoon |
| fine sea salt | to taste |
| white pepper | freshly ground, to taste |
| dark rugbrod | 4 thick slices |
| unsalted buttersoftened | for the bread |
| hard-boiled eggspeeled and sliced | 2 |
| fresh garden cressto finish | small handful |
Equipment Needed
- •Medium mixing bowl
- •Small dry frying pan for toasting the curry
- •Sharp knife for the herring and apple
- •Small saucepan for the eggs
Instructions
- 1
Wake the curry
Toast the curry powder in a dry pan over low heat for thirty seconds, just until it smells warm and fragrant. Tip it onto a cold plate immediately so it stops cooking. This is the step most recipes skip, and it's the one that makes the difference. Raw curry powder tastes flat and dusty. Toasted curry powder wakes up and tastes like something. The dressing is built around this, so do it properly.
Use a mild curry powder, the gentle yellow kind, not a hot madras. Danish curry flavor is warm and rounded, never sharp. If your curry powder is old and tired, buy a fresh tin. Spices lose their voice within a year of opening. - 2
Mix the dressing
In a medium bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, creme fraiche, toasted curry powder, Dijon mustard, and sugar until completely smooth. Taste it. It should be creamy, gently sweet, and warm with curry, not hot. Season with a pinch of salt and a turn of white pepper. The dressing needs to taste slightly more assertive than you'd serve on its own, because the herring will soften it once everything sits together.
- 3
Prepare the herring
Drain the herring fillets well and pat them dry with kitchen paper. Cut them into pieces roughly two centimetres across, bite-size but not too small. If the pieces are too fine they disappear into the dressing, and half the pleasure of karrysild is finding the fish.
- 4
Fold the salad together
Add the herring pieces, diced apple, shallot, and chopped capers to the dressing. Fold everything together gently with a rubber spatula. Don't stir roughly. The herring is delicate and you want the pieces whole, each one coated in yellow dressing, the apple and shallot visible as small flecks of white through it.
- 5
Let it rest
Cover the bowl and refrigerate for at least four hours, preferably overnight. This is not optional. Karrysild made and eaten immediately tastes like three separate things sitting next to each other. Karrysild that has rested tastes like one dish. The curry softens, the herring picks up the dressing, the apple surrenders a little of its sweetness. The joy of waiting is real here, and it's what turns a bowl of ingredients into a piece of smorrebrod worth making.
Taste it again after the rest and adjust. It may want another pinch of salt or a tiny squeeze of lemon. Cold food always needs a little more seasoning than warm food. - 6
Butter the rugbrod
Spread each slice of rugbrod generously with softened butter, right to the edges. This is not a garnish, it's structural. The butter is the waterproof layer between the wet salad and the bread. Without it, the rugbrod turns soggy within minutes. Danish smorrebrod is built on buttered bread. Always. That's not a rule, it's the architecture.
- 7
Assemble and serve
Pile a generous spoonful of karrysild onto each slice of buttered rugbrod, mounding it slightly rather than spreading flat. Lay two or three slices of hard-boiled egg over the top, overlapping. Finish with a small tuft of fresh cress. Serve immediately, with a knife and fork, and a cold beer or a schnapps if the moment calls for it. Tak for mad.
Chef Tips
- •Make it the day before. This is the most important tip in the whole recipe. Karrysild improves for twenty-four hours in the fridge and then holds well for another two days. If you're planning a lunch, make the salad the night before and do nothing on the day except butter the bread and slice the eggs.
- •The herring itself matters. Good Danish or Swedish pickled herring, the kind sold in jars of sweet-sour marinade, is what you want. Avoid anything in heavy cream sauce or strong dill pickle, those are different dishes. If you can find matjes-style herring, it works beautifully here too.
- •A small crisp apple, something like a Cox or a Pink Lady, gives the salad its fresh bite. Mealy apples disappear into the dressing and leave nothing behind. The apple should still crunch slightly when you find a piece of it the next day.
- •Garden cress is the traditional finish, not parsley, not dill. Cress has a gentle peppery warmth that echoes the curry without fighting it. If you can't buy it, a small handful of micro mustard greens works in its place.
Advance Preparation
- •Karrysild must be made at least four hours ahead, and is best made the day before. Start the night before you plan to serve it.
- •The finished salad keeps for three days in the fridge in a sealed container. The flavor is at its peak on day two.
- •Hard-boil the eggs at the same time you make the salad. Cooled and peeled, they keep in the fridge for several days and are ready when you want to assemble.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 220g)
Calories
615 calories
Total Fat
47 g
Saturated Fat
15 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
30 g
Cholesterol
180 mg
Sodium
1140 mg
Total Carbohydrates
30 g
Dietary Fiber
4 g
Sugars
4 g
Protein
17 g
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