Herring in sour cream with apple and onion: a Christmas table classic
Matjes fillets soaked in milk, cut up and folded into sour cream with grated apple and thin onion. The milk draws out the excess salt and mellows the fish, the apple brings a sweetness that balances the fish, and lemon keeps the sauce fresh. An hour in the fridge and the herring stops being fish from a jar and becomes the dish people go back to twice.
Your own work in that: 20 min.
- Herring soaking 180 min
- Sauce and mixing 20 min
- Resting 60 min
Step by step
0 / 5 doneSoak the herring in milk
Cover the fillets completely with milk and refrigerate 3 hours (tub matjes need 2, barrel-salted herring up to 12). After two hours taste a piece: it should be salty, but not so salty that it stings.
Ingredients: 500 g matjes herring fillets · 500 ml milk
TipMilk draws out salt just as water does, and it also mellows the fishy smell and flavour of the fillets. If you soak them in water, change it once or twice.
Three hours in milk, then a tasteDrain and cut
Lift the herring out, discard the milk and pat the fillets dry with paper towel. Cut into 3 cm pieces. Wet fillets water down the cream and the sauce turns thin and watery.
Patted dry, in 3 cm piecesMake the sauce
Peel the apple and grate it coarsely, splashing with lemon at once. Slice the onion into very thin feathers; if it is sharp, cover with boiling water for a minute and drain. Mix with the sour cream, sugar and pepper.
Ingredients: 300 g sour cream, 18 % · 1 pcs apple · 1 pcs onion · ½ pcs lemon, juice · 1 tsp sugar · ½ tsp black pepper · ½ bunch chives
TipThe sugar isn't there to sweeten the sauce but to balance the salt of the herring. Without it the saltiness takes over.
Apple coarse, onion thin, lemon at onceFold together gently
Fold the herring pieces into the sauce from the bottom up, so the fillets don't break. Transfer to a glass dish and level it.
Bottom to top, nothing brokenChill for an hour
Cover and refrigerate an hour, ideally overnight. Sprinkle with chives before serving. Serve with hot boiled potatoes and dill, or with bread. Keeps 3 days in a closed dish in the fridge.
Ingredients: 800 g potatoes · ½ bunch dill
An hour in the fridge, chives on top
Before you start
With yogurt
Half sour cream, half thick Greek yogurt: lighter and tangier. Eat within 2 days, yogurt separates sooner.
With brined pickles
Two brined pickled cucumbers in fine dice instead of the apple: the savoury version, for vodka, with no sweetness.
How long to soak
Tub matjes in oil are the least salty: 2 hours, or just a rinse. Barrel-salted herring needs 12 hours and two changes of milk. The taste decides, never the clock.
