Banana-Chocolate Herring

When I first came across the Icelandic speciality banana herring I was at a loss for words at first.

The sheer outlandish oddness of the dish never fails to stun people who encounter it for the first time.

That being said, it wasn't actually that long before we started brainstorming how to top this freakishness.

Credit should go to one of my dormitory friends for suggesting adding chocolate to the dish.

Once it was said I naturally had to try it. At least once. I don't make this often, but it still happens from time to time..

Ingredients:
- 4 tbsp sour cream
- 2 tbsp mayonnaise
- 4 tsp honey mustard
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
- 1 banana, diced
- 40 g (1.4 oz) 72% dark chocolate, diced
- 250 g (¹/₂ lb) plain pickled herring

The sour cream, mayonnaise and honey mustard was stirred together, then the paprika, banana and chocolate pieced were stirred in. Finally the pickled herring was added and stirred in so the herring pieces were coated in mixture. Covered and left in fridge overnight (or longer) before being served on wholegrain dark rye bread.

But how does it taste? Interestingly, the chocolate functions as a rather subtle addition to the flavour, but when served chilled the chocolate pieces add a welcome "crunch" to the texture. I should add that banana herring - with or without added chocolate - is quite rich and as such goes better as part of a larger selection of herring as well as other choices, such as a Danish Christmas lunch or similar..

Danish Christmas Lunch 2008

On Christmas day we had a couple of guests over for a Danish style Christmas lunch. The concept of a such a lunch is to sit at a table for several hours, eating a selection of cold and warm dishes served in succession while talking and drinking strong and/or dark beer (such as these) and aquavit ('snaps').


For this particular lunch we served...

To drink: Erdmandli Zuger Amber and Hopfemandli Lager Dunkel from Brauerei Baar in Baar, Switzerland. Both of these are nicely dark beers that go well with the food here.

To eat: First fish
1a. pickled herring with rings of red onion, curry sauce,^[1] and hard boiled eggs (on whole-grain dark rye bread).
1b. leek herring (on whole-grain dark rye bread).
1c. smoked salmon with mayonnaise and lemon wedges (on white bread).
1d. marinated salmon ('gravad laks') with honey-mustard sauce (on white bread).

Bonus drink (particularly to go with herrings): In small glasses, shots of our own import of Danish aquavit, Myrica flavoured aquavit ('porsesnaps') from Aalborg/Danish Distillers - a personal favourite of mine (and one of the few drink issues where I seem to agree with my mother).

After the fish followed a warm dish:
2. oven-warmed liver pâté with freshly sautéed bacon and mushrooms, and optional pickled beetroots (on dark or white bread as preferred).

Followed by a selection of sliced meats:
3a. horse salami.
3b. cold pork roast (on whole-grain dark rye bread with red-cabbage sauerkraut).
3c. cold duck roast (on whole-grain dark rye bread with red-cabbage sauerkraut).

At this point we were ready to entertain with with cheeses and fruits, but our guests looked about ready to burst already, so we decided to skip directly to the sweets:
4a. flourless chocolate-brazil nut cake
4b. cookie selection: Finnish breads, Swedish chocolate breads, Palestinian cookies, and pistachio shortbreads.

And so went the entire afternoon. One doesn't really need much of a dinner after such a lunch...

^[1] To get a more strongly yellow curry sauce I added pure ground turmeric.

Guacamole Herring

In my quest for new ways to serve pickled herring I came up with this combination of Danish and Mexican foods. Two pickled herring filets were cut in smaller pieces and mixed with guacamole (half portion of recipe given here - with fresh green chillies added) and the mixture was covered and left in the fridge overnight.


As always, herring was eaten on dark whole grain rye bread. To drink: dark beer, and - since I don't have any Danish snaps in the house right now - a shot of tequila. The guacamole goes quite nicely with the pickled herring: it has an appropriate freshness. If anything, I would maybe use more herring for the same amount of guacamole some other time as the guacamole was almost too dominating in the overall taste.

Herring with Copenhagen titbits

This way of serving herring was introduced to me by a family I'm no longer in touch with - which isn't really a story I want to go into here, other than to say that I never found out why they called this Copenhagen titbits ('københavnerkræs') and if I tried calling them up now to ask it could be ... well, awkward.

Ingredients:
- hard-boiled eggs
- pickled beetroot
- pickled herring

The eggs were diced (as finely as one cares to), and placed in a small bowl. The pickled beets were diced (again, as finely as one cares to do it) and placed in a separate bowl.

Pieces of pickled herring were arranged on buttered bread (preferably dark whole grain rye) and even amounts of diced egg and diced beet was sprinkled on top. Voila! as the locals would say.

Kippers and scramled eggs

Already December again. Not sure how this happened.

Anyway.

As the Yuletide approaches we will be finding occasion to enjoy lots of traditional foods.

Mrs. Throat-Erator recently reminded me of the classic combination of kippers with scrambled eggs and chives on whole grain dark rye bread.

Kippers

No, I didn't actually split, gut, salt and smoke these herrings myself. I just bought a can of it, served is on whole grain rye bread and garnished it with chives from the newly installed balcony herb garden.


This is being one of the kinds of foods possible in my currently unfinished kitchen...

Curry sauce for herring

One of the most classical & widespread ways of serving herring in Denmark is with curry sauce, and it appears this will be the last variety of herring I make this winter. In Denmark this can be bought, either as a side or as herring pieces in curry sauce. Whichever way you prefer it, it can be quite delicious if you make your own fresh curry sauce - and being far from Denmark I found I had little choice.

Ingredients:
- 2 tbsp mayonnaise
- 2 tbsp sour cream
- salt & pepper
- 1 tsp hot madras curry powder [1]
- 1/3 small onion
- 1 hard-boiled egg
- 8 cornichons

The onion, egg, and cornichons were chopped medium finely and everything was stirred together.

Served with pieces of pickled herring on dark whole grain rye bread.

[1] My hot madras curry powder lists the following ingredients: fenugreek, coriander, cumin, turmeric, red pepper - but states the list isn't complete.

Ginger Herring

I think I can just squeeze in one more type of herring before Christmas: Ginger herring. These are in a clear dressing - unlike most other herrings I know.

Ingredients:
- 4 tbsp white vinegar
- 4 tbsp olive oil
- 2 serrano chilies [1]
- 2 puya chillies [1]
- 2 tbsp fresh ginger
- 1 shallot
- about 200 g (7 oz) pieces of pickled herring

The chilies, ginger, shallot was diced finely. Then everything was mixed well and alloved to stand in the fridge over night before serving on dark whole grain rye bread.

[1] It is far from essential to use serrano and puya chilies - the idea is to use a green and a red chili. Since I used dried puya I soaked them before dicing them, but with fresh red chilies obviously this step can be omitted.

Pink Herring

Some 5-6 years ago I held a small Easter Lunch with 2 friends from the dorm. It was a fairly minimalistic concept: Basically we ate different kinds of pickled herring. For that occasion I came up with these pink herring (yes, the original name was more .. decadent..) which I quite liked and have made several times since.

Ingredients:
- 150 g (5 oz) sour cream
- 75 g (2 1/2 oz) mayonnaise
- salt & pepper
- 80 g (3 oz) red onion
- 75 g (2 1/2 oz) pickled beets
- extra beet juice to add color
- 150 g (5 oz) pieces of pickled herring [1]

The mayonnaise and the sour cream was mixed with a spoon, seasoned with salt and pepper. Into this was mixed finely diced red onion and pickled beets. The resulting color was very faintly pink, so I added a little more of the pickling juice from the beets. Finally the pieces of herring went in, and the mix was stored in the fridge overnight before serving on whole grain rye bread.

[1] This amount of dressing could easily take more herring than I used.

Leek Herring

As we approach the winter solstice it's a traditional time for eating pickled herring, and in the weeks to come I'll probably show a couple of my favorite herring recipes.
We'll start off with these leek herrings, which I learned some 8 years ago when I moved into my second dorm.

Ingredients:
- 150 g (5 oz) sour cream
- 75 g (2 1/2 oz) mayonnaise
- salt & pepper [1]
- 1 clove garlic
- 1 small leek, ca. 80 g (3 oz)
- 150 g (5 oz) pieces of pickled herring [2]


The sour cream and mayonnaise were mixed with a spoon, then the salt, pepper, and crushed garlic was mixed in. The leek was cut in rings about 1/2 cm (1/5 inch) thick and rinsed well before they were added. Finally, pre-cut, pre-pickled herring was put in, mixed well with the rest and left to stand in the fridge for at least 1 night before serving on dark whole-grain rye bread. Goes well with beer and snaps.

[1] If I'd had any, I would have used white pepper.
[2] With the rest of the ingredients as listed here, certainly more herring could be added.

(Parsley)-Banana Herring

Inspired by the TGWRT#2 event (although much too late to really participate) I decided to try this modification of one of my favourite recipes. Banana Herring is - as far as I have been able to figure out - an Icelandic speciality and seeing as Iceland is probably one of the few places on earth where one has access to both locally produced herring AND bananas I guess it does sound reasonable. When I first read about this particular combination, I was intrigued - banana and pickled herring? - so intrigued I decided to try it out and found that it really tasted good. So far, everybody whom I've convinced to try it have agreed that it works a lot better than it sounds.

Pickled herring is of course a speciality from Scandinavia, but I've learned that it's possible to get it at least as far away from home as southern California. Based on other people's experience with the parsley I decided to simply make my standard banana herring and then add fresh, coarsely chopped parsley just before serving.

Ingredients:
- 4 tbsp sour cream
- 4 tbsp mayonaise
- 4 tsp honey mustard
- 1 diced banana
- paprika to taste
- pickled herring

Stir the sour cream, mayonaise, honey mustard and paprika together with a spoon. Then add the diced banana and pieces of pickled herring (making sure to get the herring into the mixture) and let it sit in the fridge for at least one night.

Serve on whole-grain dark rye bread (again, this can be obtained far from Scandinavia) and sprinkle with fresh, coarsely chopped parsley.

VERDICT: While the parsley certainly added a very nice look to the banana herring, I have to admit that I couldn't really taste it. So, from a tasting point of view the parsley didn't really add anything to the banana herring.