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Home Cured Herring

Home Cured Herring is a traditional British recipe for cured herring preserved in a mustard marinade. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic British version of: Home Cured Herring.

prep time

20 minutes

cook time

30 minutes

Total Time:

50 minutes

Additional Time:

(+24 hours curing)

Makes:

1 jar

Rating:

Tags : Spice RecipesVegetable RecipesBritish Recipes

Cured herring used to be very common where herring were caught in large numbers (particularly on the Celtic Sea coasts). Although the practice of home curing has died out somewhat, cured or salted herring is a pre-requisite for making any form of pickled herring, so I'm offering this as an useful starting point for other dishes. The recipe here is based on an old family recipe, but it's been updated with a few more modern ingredients.

Ingredients:

8 whole herring, scaled, gutted and filleted
200g sea salt
pinch of caster sugar

For the Mustard Marinade:
450ml white wine vinegar (or cider vinegar)
300ml water
250g caster sugar
10 allspice berries
10 black peppercorns
4 juniper berries
2 dried hot chillies (eg piri-piri)
2 bay leaves
3 red onions, finely sliced
2 carrots, finely sliced
1 tbsp yellow mustard powder
5 whole mustard seeds

Method:

Place the herring in a rectangular dish then mix together the salt and sugar and use to cover the fish. Cover the dish with clingfilm then set in the refrigerator for 24 hours to cure. This is the point at which you have salt herring and you can use the fish from this point in any dish that calls for 'salt herring'.

To finish the pickling process, add all the ingredients for the marinade to a small pan. Bring slowly to the boil. In the meantime brush the salt off the fish (discard this and clean out the curing dish) and add the fish to the pan. When the mixture is boiling arrange the fish in the dish then pour the vinegar mixture over the top.

Place in an oven pre-heated to 220°C and bake for 20 minutes. Take out of the oven and set aside to cool completely. Transfer the herring to a sterilized preserving jar then pour the marinade over the top. Place in the refrigerator, where the herring will keep for up to 2 weeks.