Cream Herring with Dill Pickles

My Cream Herring with Dill Pickles is for once a traditional dish and one of my all-time favourites. Extra tender pickled herring is marinated in a sauce made of sour cream, crunchy and tart dill pickles, sweet apples and onions plus a good bunch of fresh dill, supporting both the pickles and fish, cutting through the saltiness of it and adding gentle grassy anise notes to the dish. Eaten with boiled potatoes, it’s a delicacy you mostly find in Scandinavian and Eastern European cuisines, and once you try it you’ll be hooked.

 

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• Why You Will Love This
• The Ingredients
• How to Make this
• How To Store
• FAQ

Why You Will Love This 

Extra Tender Fish

If you are not a fan of cooked fish, same as me, you’ll love this one. The herrings are caught when very young in the North Sea during the Season in May/June. It’s a very short season, just lasting weeks, to get the perfect tender texture. They are then ripened for a few days in oak barrels with a salty brine, where pancreatic enzymes do the work of softening the flesh and preserving the fish.

Once they have finished that ripening process, they are shipped all over the world.  In some regions the arrival of the new season’s Matjes is celebrated with their very own festivals.

The classic way to eat them is to just pick them up by the tail, tip your head back and eat the fish fillets whole. Though my recipe is the very close second when it comes to traditional ways to eat this delicious fish.

Good for you

Oily fish with its abundance of protein and Omega-3 fatty acids plus a good amount of Vitamin D is a fabulous thing to add to your meals. I often don’t eat enough of either, so with this dish I happily fill up on them while loving every single bite.

Cheap

Because herring is so plentyful in the ocean, it’s one of the cheapest fish you can buy. The remaining ingredients are the same and you can usually easily find them in your supermarket (or have them already at home). The side like potatoes and bread are equally everyday staples, which is probably one of the reasons this dish was promoted as great way to get protein after WW2.

Much better than shop bought

If you ever tried shop bought creamed herring and weren’t a fan, do yourself a favor and give this one a go. It’s freshness and lack of preservatives are miles from the ready made version, which can have a weird after taste and is often made with mayonnaise and other long lasting ingredients.

In the original version, the salty fish seasons the cream (no extra salt needed), dill pickles, onions, and apple balance the flavor, adding acidity and sweetness to the umami rich sauce and layering some crunch over the super soft fish.

No need to worry about bones

If you are like me, you find bones that freak you out even in the best fish filet. But not in Matjes! The herring is filleted before brining, sure. But the enzymes in the brine will soften any remaining bones until you won’t feel them anymore. I promise.

Super Quick to make

The whole dish comes together within 10 minutes and is mostly made of ingredients you probably have at home. The preserved herring will last for ages, so I often have a pack of it in my fridge, for those long days when I really can’t think of anything adventurous. (Though, depending on where you live, you might feel this is very adventurous!)

How to eat Cream Herring

The classic way to eat this creamy and salty dish is with boiled new potatoes. I always boil them with their skin, no need to peel. Which of course makes this even faster.

In Germany we also often have it with bread. Pumpernickel, Black Bread, or Rye bread is particularly good. And all around Northern Germany you’ll find stalls and restaurants that offer “Fischbrötchen”, meaning sandwich rolls filled with all sorts of fish, among them Matjes and Cream Herring. They were always one of my favourite things to eat while out and about and we sometimes drove all the way to the coast to find the freshest and best versions.

The Ingredients

• Matjes fillets – The salt brined, tender herring is readily available all over Europe and can often be found in Jewish shops in the US (Costco has it too I read), ordered on Amazon or found at IKEA.
• Apple – Choose a tangy-sweet and crisp variety like Pink Lady or Granny Smith. The acidity will cut through the cream sauce and the sweetness balances the salty fish
• Dill Pickles – I love using honey pickles with their gentle tang. But if you are more for the full on vinegary versions, go for it! Either works well here. A bit of the pickle juice is used in the sauce, so don’t throw it out
• Onion – I’m using red onion as I love the pretty pink together with the shimmering silvery skin of the fish. But use what you have at home.
• Sour Cream – This is the classic, used in many countries, but my grandma for example just made the dish with cream. Either works nicely. If you use cream (Oat cream for those with lactose intolerance) add a tablespoon of vinegar for acidity.
• Milk – Entirely optional to soak the brined fillets. I don’t use it, but you can.
• Dill – The fresh and slightly sweet anise flavor go fantastic with fish of any kind and are near indispensable in this one. You can use dried if you can’t find fresh.

There, that’s already it. No salt needed as the fish is salty enough to season the sauce. Though some recipes add pepper or juniper berries. But I prefer it very simple.

How to Make this

Another one of those low effort-high reward dishes.

Rinse (and optionally soak) your fish

Lay out some paper towels on a plate.

Start by rinsing the brine off your Matjes fillets. Now, if you are on a reduced sodium diet or just don’t like fairly salty food, you can soak them for an hour or so in a bit of milk, to pull out some of the salt. Personally I find rinsing is enough, but I do enjoy salty food and have rather too low than too high blood pressure, so a little more doesn’t bother me.

Transfer the fish to the paper towels and pat them dry.

Chop into bite sized pieces (Not too small. They are so soft, you’ll need proper sized pieces to enjoy the texture. The silkiness of them is rather incredible.) and transfer to a bowl *. Ideally glass to be easy to clean later.

Chop onions, dill, pickles and apple

Peel the onion and cut it in half, then chop into thin slices.

Cut the sides off the apple’s core and chop into small pieces. You could peel it first if you want, but I never bother and quite like the bite of the skin. Plus, more fibre is always appreciated.

Chop the dill pickles into slices.

Finely chop the dill.

Mix

Add everything including the sour cream to your bowl * and give it a good stir.

Now the hard part: Cover the bowl and put it in the fridge for a few hours or overnight, so all the flavors can get to know each other and form that incredible creamy sauce.

This dish only gets better on day 2, 3 and 4.

Equipment used for this recipe

knife

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chopping board

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bowl

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*

To Serve

Boil some baby potatoes or serve with a good rye bread/pumpernickel. Top with more dill if you like.

How To Store

Cream Herring with Dill Pickles keeps in the fridge for about 4 days, getting better all the time, while the sour cream absorbs and brings together the flavors.

Watch the video here:

FAQ

Now I’d love to hear from you in the comments!

Have you tried this? Did you enjoy it?
What other recipes would you like to see?

If you enjoyed this recipe, please share. It helps me a lot.

If you enjoyed this recipe, here are some others you might like:

A super quick dip including cottage cheese and pickles with a crunchy fried topping:

Another recipe with fish, from an entirely different corner of the world are these Sushi Tacos. Fusion at it’s best!

Or maybe in form of an easy and healthy Sushi Bowl?

Maybe you’d like to finish with a classic German Plum cake, which is one of my favorite summer dishes!

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