Hey steemit community and food-lovers, I made this not too long ago and my friends really liked it, so I thought I will share this one with you. What you see is:
"Marinated Herring-Fillet on top of Red Beet and a poached Quail egg with Red Beet foam on top"
I would say its more like a Nordic (European) dish with a bit of my own touch. It is really not too hard to prepare, takes some patience but believe me, you will be rewarded!
Ingredients:
- 2-3 Herring fishes (preferably Bismarck/pickled herring)
- Couple of quail eggs
- Water
- White Vinegar
- 1 Onion
- 2-3 Shallots
- Mustard seeds
- Pepper
- Salt
- Garlic
- Bay leaves
- Dill
- 2 Red beets
- Star anise
Preparation:
- Start by washing and cleaning your herring fishes and cover them with a thick layer of salt and put them into the fridge for about 2 or 3 days. Use a small container or roll them into some foil.
- Take the herring and wash it again, clean it from all the salt and pat it dry. Now you can already cut the fish. Cut off tail and head (in case it still has them) and slice it in two pieces. You should have two long pieces by now. Be careful when you cut it from the top or bottom side, because that's where you separate the meat parts from the main bone that runs from head to tail. Plenty of YouTube videos on this, so no worries! When you are done with this, cut the fillets to bite-sized pieces.
- Now you prepare the acidic solution that can soak into the fish, because you just soaked out everything from the fish with our crust of salt. Get a small container that is just big enough for all our small herring pieces. Before you put them into the container, we prepare our solution by adding 2/3 of water and 1/3 of white vinegar ,which has to cover all of the herring, into the container. Afterwards, cut onions, shallots & garlic in smaller pieces and add them as well. The next step is to simply add a couple of mustard seeds, bay leaves, some dill and pepper & salt. Here you can be creative with what other spices you want to use. At the end put the herring fillets inside our marinade. Put it in the fridge for 2 days.
- Our herring has soaked in all the delicious flavors by now and we can start preparing our red beets, the red beet foam and our quail eggs. Start heating up water in a pot and put in the red beets as soon as it starts boiling. Don't peel them in advance, do it afterwards otherwise they will bleed out in your pot. Add some star anise to the boiling water, this will give the beets an incredible flavor. Boil them for 30 minutes and start peeling them carefully. Cut out some small bite-sized pieces and keep them. But most of the beets should go inside some sort of cloth that you don't need anymore. Wring out the red juice out of the beets with the cloth into a new small container.
- To get the red beet foam: Take the container with the red beet liquid, add just a pinch of soy lecithin (granule) to keep the foam stable and blend it with a blender. Keep the blender half in the liquid and half in the air. To get the foam you have to get the oxygen into the liquid. Blend until the foam starts to build up. Preheat your oven at 180°C / 365 Fahrenheit.
- Start heating up water in a pot for the quail eggs. If you don't know how to poach quail eggs, I recommend you to check out YouTube videos on this one, it's easier than it sounds. (You have to carefully cut open the egg with a sharp knife, pour the egg in a bowl filled with white or balsamic vinegar. Once the water is boiling stir it until you get a small vortex and empty out the bowl with the eggs into it and you will get your poached egg. It will look kind of weird with balsamic vinegar but it gives your egg a special taste!)
- Your oven should have the right temperature by now. Take the herring pieces out of your container, clean them a little and put them carefully into the oven. We just want to give them some warmth, so take them out shortly after, otherwise they will quickly dry out!
- Basically you are done. The best way to eat it is to eat it all at once. I used a nice serving spoon, started with one of the red beet pieces, put one of herring pieces on top of it and the poached quail egg next to it. At the end I added carefully some of the red beet foam on top of everything. Optionally, sprinkle some salt and dip on top. Here as well, feel free to be creative and let your fantasy drive you!
Additional Information: Play around with spices that you have, add some of your own ideas and show some imagination & creativity! Be careful when you buy the fish, you want to eat it with the skin, so buy fresh ones from retailers that you trust!
Let me know if you like what I did, if you are planning on trying it out as well or did something similar, happy to hear from all you food-fanatics! :)