Roter Heringssalat (Red Herring Salad with Beetroot)

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Two medium saucepans (one for beetroot, one for potatoes)
• •Large mixing bowl
• •Sharp knife and cutting board (expect beetroot staining)

Instructions

1. 1

   Cook the beetroot and potatoes

   Place the unpeeled beetroot in a pot, cover with cold water, add a pinch of salt, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 40 to 50 minutes until a knife slides in without resistance. In a separate pot, boil the unpeeled potatoes in salted water for about 20 minutes until just tender. You want them cooked through but still holding their shape. Festkochende, waxy potatoes, are essential here. Floury potatoes will crumble into the dressing and turn the whole salad into mush. Drain both and let them cool enough to handle, then peel. Reserve two tablespoons of the beetroot cooking liquid before you pour it away.

   Cook the beetroot and potatoes separately. Beetroot bleeds and will stain your potatoes purple before you're ready for that to happen. You want to control when the pink arrives.
2. 2

   Dice everything uniformly

   Cut the cooled beetroot into small, even dice, roughly one centimeter. Do the same with the potatoes. The size matters. You want every forkful to contain a bit of everything, so uniformity is what you're after. Dice the Essiggurkerln to the same size. Peel and core the apple and dice it the same way. Peel the red onion and chop it very fine, almost to a mince. Cut the Matjesheringsfilets into pieces about the same size as your beetroot dice. Dice the hard-boiled eggs last. Keep the beetroot on a separate board or plate until you're ready to combine. It stains everything it touches and you want the pink to happen in the bowl, not on your cutting board.

   Gretel always said the knife does half the work in a salad like this. Even, patient dicing. If one piece is twice the size of another, the salad won't come together the way it should.
3. 3

   Make the dressing

   In a large bowl, whisk together the Sauerrahm, mayonnaise, Apfelessig, Kren, mustard, and sugar until smooth. Season with salt and pepper. The dressing should taste slightly too sharp and too salty at this stage. It's going to absorb into all those diced vegetables and the herring overnight, and flavors dull as they sit. If it tastes perfectly seasoned now, it will taste flat tomorrow. Add the two tablespoons of beetroot cooking liquid and stir. This gives the dressing a head start on its journey toward pink.

4. 4

   Fold everything together

   Add the potatoes, Essiggurkerln, apple, onion, herring, and hard-boiled egg to the dressing. Fold gently with a large spoon, turning from the bottom. Add the beetroot last. The moment it goes in, the pink begins. Fold it through until every piece is coated in dressing and the color starts to shift. Don't stir roughly. The potatoes and eggs will break apart if you handle them like you're mixing concrete. Gentle, deliberate folds. Five or six turns of the spoon should do it.

   Taste after folding. Adjust salt, pepper, or a small splash more Apfelessig now. The vinegar is important. It keeps the salad bright and stops the richness of the herring and Sauerrahm from becoming heavy.
5. 5

   Rest overnight

   Press cling film directly onto the surface of the salad, not across the top of the bowl, but touching the salad itself. This prevents a skin from forming on the dressing. Refrigerate for at least twelve hours, overnight is ideal. When you open the fridge the next day, the transformation will have happened. What went in as a pale pink mixture will have become a vivid, almost electric magenta. The potatoes and apple will have absorbed the beetroot juice and the herring brine, and every piece will taste like it belongs with every other piece. This is good Austrian home cooking at its most patient.

6. 6

   Serve cold

   Give the salad a gentle stir. Taste once more and adjust seasoning if needed. It may want another pinch of salt or a few drops of vinegar after its night in the fridge. Spoon into a serving bowl or onto individual plates. Scatter finely cut chives across the top. Serve cold, straight from the fridge, with dark bread or a Semmel alongside. This is Silvester food. It sits on the buffet table next to the Sekt and the Frankfurter Würstchen, and people come back to it all night. Mahlzeit!

Chef Tips

• •Use proper Matjesheringsfilets, the mild salt-cured kind that come in oil or brine, not smoked herring and not pickled Bismarck herring. Matjes are young, tender, and sweet-briny. They dissolve into the salad perfectly. If you can only find whole Matjes, fillet them yourself and remove the skin.
• •The Sauerrahm and mayonnaise ratio matters. Sauerrahm gives the tang, the mayonnaise gives the body. If you use all Sauerrahm, the dressing will be too thin and too sour. If you use all mayonnaise, you lose that clean Austrian flavor and end up with something that tastes like a different country's potato salad. Keep the balance.
• •Don't skip the Kren. One teaspoon of prepared horseradish is barely detectable on its own, but it gives the dressing a quiet heat that lifts everything. Without it, the salad is pleasant. With it, the salad is alive.
• •This salad keeps well in the fridge for three days and honestly tastes even better on day two than day one. The pink deepens. The flavors settle. If you're making it for Silvester, make it on the 30th and forget about it until the party starts.

Advance Preparation

• •The salad must be made at least 12 hours ahead. This is not optional. The overnight rest transforms six separate ingredients into one cohesive dish and develops the signature pink color.
• •Beetroot and potatoes can be boiled up to two days ahead and refrigerated unpeeled. Peel and dice when you're ready to assemble.
• •Hard-boiled eggs can be cooked up to three days ahead and refrigerated in their shells.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 240g)