Herring Salad Recipe for Ash Wednesday

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is a chef, food photographer, cookbook author and blogger.
Here he shares recipes, answers cooking questions and helps with cooking.

You can find my herring salad recipe in this post.

The herring feast is a typical fish salad, a traditional meal for Ash Wednesday, when Lent begins.

The fish salad supports our digestion and helps with detoxification after the ball season.

Lent is really fun with this feast, I wish you every success in cooking yourself.

1. Recipe Herring Salad

Below you will find the instructions.

Leave me kitchen gossip or a cooking question via the comment function at the bottom of the page 🙂

Herring Salad

Cooked, photographed and written down by chef Thomas Sixt.

Servings 2
Calories 336
Total Time 75 Min.
Preparation Time 15 Min.
Cook Time 60 Min.

Simple guide to prepare salad with herring for Ash Wednesday.

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Herring salad Recipe Image
Herring Salad Recipe Image © Thomas Sixt

Ingredients

2 Piece beetroot cooked (cook fresh beets!)
2 tbsp lemon juice (or a little white wine vinegar)
1 Pinches primal salt
1-2 Pinches brown can sugar
2 Pinches black ground pepper
2 tbsp linseed oil
1 tbsp Olive oil
3-6 Pieces Matjes – young pickled Herring
2 Pieces Apple (finely cut with shell, quartered without core)
1 tbsp mint (cut finely into strips)
1 tsp horseradish (freshly torn)
4 Pieces spring onion (Cut into fine sticks or rings)

Instruction

Beetroot cooking in a pot
You can boil or steam beetroot. When steaming, more vitamins and more flavor remain in the vegetables.

Boil beets

Boil the beets in plenty of salted water until soft.

-> I always cook a whole pot full of beetroot and put the remaining beets that I don’t use for the herring feast in a little olive oil.

Please see step 3.

Potato rösti fried crispy in a pan
The potato pancake or rösti can be turned after a few minutes. Wait until a crust forms and the hash brown comes off easily.

Side dish

Prepare the side dishes for the herring feast:

–> jacket potatoes

–> Rösti or potato pancakes

–> Fried potatoes

–> baked potatoes

–> Prepare bread or rolls.

Season beetroot salad with pepper
Season beetroot salad with pepper, salt, sugar, vinegar and oil.

Marinate beets

Peel the soft-cooked beets under running water and leave to cool.

–> Then finely chop the beetroot and place in a large bowl.

–> Marinate beets with lemon juice, salt, sugar, pepper, linseed oil and olive oil.

This is a beetroot salad and the basis of our preparation.

Optionally, you can keep part of the salad as a beetroot salad in the fridge for 1-2 days.

Water herring
Please only water the matjes briefly – we don’t want any drowned corpses 😉

Prepare herring

Take the matjes fillet or herring out of the packaging.

–> Rinse the fish fillets under cold running water and soak in cold water for 15 minutes.

-> You can try a small piece of fish and then decide for or against watering.

-> This is how you avoid a herring salad that is too salty.

Cut apple slices
Prepare apple slices

Prepare apples

Prepare the apples, cut them in half with or without the peel, cut out the core and cut into thin slices.

–> I don’t peel my apples for the herring salad, because valuable fiber and vitamins get into the salad with the peel.

-> Add the apple slices to the prepared beets and mix.

mint
Finely chop mint leaves and mint on a cutting board.

Marinate salad

–> Cut the mint finely into strips.

–> Drain the matjes and cut into bite-sized pieces.

-> Mix both ingredients with apple and beetroot and let marinate for 10 minutes.

Herring salad with apple and beetroot, served with horseradish and spring onions.
Deliciously prepared herring feast, this herring salad with apple and beetroot tastes great and is easy to make.

Serve

Prepare spring onions and horseradish:

–> Arrange the herring feast on plates, decorate with onions and horseradish.

-> Add side dishes and serve quickly and enjoy.

Bon appetit!

I combine linseed oil and olive oil as well as lemon juice with my herring salad.

Linseed oil contains high-quality omega 3 fatty acids and supports digestion.

Olive oil promotes the fine taste. The lemon juice brings freshness to the palate.

2. Calories and Nutritional Values

The nutritional values refer only to the salad without side dishes.

3. It’s that Easy To Make Herring Salad Yourself

Nutrition experts agree: Herring has a detoxifying and intestinal cleansing effect.

The meat of the sea animals contains valuable omega-3 fatty acids as well as vitamins A, D and B12, among others.

This makes the herring salad an ideal meal for the start of Lent!

You can prepare your herring feast yourself in many ways.

In addition to the recipes presented here, there is also the creamy variant of herring with sour cream, créme fraîche or soy cream.

Please take a look at my Matjessalat recipe with two cooking videos.

A little product information about the herring:

If you stand in the supermarket you will discover pickled herring and matjes filet.

Explanation: The matjes is the young herring and not yet capable of spawning.

It is therefore a very young fish, which is why the herring is finer and softer in appearance. For me the first choice!

I have dedicated a separate ingredient entry to the matjes . Discover the big and small mysteries elsewhere.

Matjes is the better herring, use herring fillet for your herring feast!

Ingredients recommended by chef Thomas Sixt
bone herring
The bones can be removed quite easily, cutting is a variant, I saw the bones being pulled out in the shop.

An important preparation tip for you: Take the herring or matjes out of the packaging and put the fish in cold water for 15 minutes.

By soaking, the fish loses its salty sharpness and becomes milder and more pleasant in taste.

Water herring
Please only water the matjes briefly – we don’t want any drowned corpses 😉

4. Idea for Herring Salad With Apple

The apple is a logical accompaniment to herring and matjes.

The sweetness from the apple offsets the tart taste and balances the dish.

I also add mint, which stimulates your digestion and gets everything flowing.

The mint is refreshing and takes away the heaviness.

I like to cut the apple pieces finely with a vegetable peeler, so the apple later combines wonderfully with the other ingredients in the herring feast.

When it comes to the apple itself, I’m picky and prefer local varieties.

Fresh mint
Mint is a miracle herb and is good for the stomach.

5. Evergreen Recipe Herring Salad With Beetroot

Beetroot or beets are the second main ingredient in my herring feast.

The beetroot is extremely healthy and I only use the great beet freshly cooked in the herring salad.

I choose the smallest possible turnips, boil them in salted water for a good hour, then drain the turnips and peel them with my hands under cold running water.

As an accompaniment to the herring salad, I cut the cooked turnips as thinly and finely as possible so that the fine turnips harmonize well with the remaining ingredients.

The fine, thin cutting of the ingredients generally has several advantages:

Small beets cook faster. Steaming or cooking with the lid open will preserve the color of the beet.

Beet cooking tip from chef Thomas Sixt
Boiled beetroot
The best way to peel the soft boiled beetroot is under cold running water. The shell is easy to detach with your hands.

6. Matching Herring Salad Side Dishes

I like to have it brightly colored on my plate, which is why I combine apple, beetroot, mint and herring with spring onions and some freshly torn horseradish for a salad with herring.

Other side dishes for the herring feast are…

Potato pancakes recipe image
Potato Pancakes Recipe Image © Thomas Sixt
Potato hash browns for appetizer
Decorative potato rösti for appetizers and soups.
Baked potatoes recipe image
Baked potatoes recipe image © Thomas Sixt
fried potatoes
Fried potatoes here with onions and diced tomatoes are a delicious side dish. © Thomas Sixt Food Photographer

7. Shopping Tip For Matjes And Herring

Buy Matjes with a price advantage
Matjes banner for online shopping. here you can have matjes with 10! order discount!

8. More Recipe Ideas For Matjes And Herring

Comments, Cooking Questions and Answers

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