# Herring under a fur coat ( )



## LarryC (Jul 11, 2015)

You guys might not be familiar with this dish....


First things first. This salad is from the USSR and was created by housewives in the 70's (hence 70esque presentation!). Really simple recipe.... it's basicly a layered salad with pickled herring, spring onions and a simple mayo sauce/vinaigrette with lots of garlic and paprika.

You start with a layer of grated potato at the bottom then a layer of grated carrots and finally a layer is grated beets. Oh and forgot to mention.... The veggies are cooked!

Between each layer you put a few slices of pickled herring, some vinaigrette and a few chopped spring onions.

You can of course substitute the herring with shrimps or eggs although I confess being quite a fan of the pickled/fishy flavor!! 

Leave it the fridge for a day or two for the flavors to mix and voilà!

Here's some pics:


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## mark76 (Jul 11, 2015)

Herring and beets, that's a classic combination, also where I live. Yummy.



LarryC said:


> voilà!



I guess that's a typo? You meant vodka?


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## icanhaschzbrgr (Jul 11, 2015)

Mark is right, one can't simply eat herring-under-a-fur-coat without a vodka


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## WildBoar (Jul 11, 2015)

My wife makes this every year in December. It's quite a, er, concoction. It definitely polarizes people at our christmas party; the camps are clearly divided between "hey, that's good!" and :surrendar:


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## ptolemy (Jul 17, 2015)

I assume that this is a fancier version of 'zakuska'. Herring, potatoes, and salo (fat back), are usually eaten after shots of vodka. 

I bet this will taste awesome. My only concern is, that herring may breakdown


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## mark76 (Jul 18, 2015)

Now we're talking beets, does anyone have a classic recipe for Borsjt? There are a lot of Borsjt recipes on the Internet, of course, but they don't taste like what a Russian visitor made for my student house a long time ago. What I recall was that this was a main dish soup filled with meat and other things.


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## riba (Jul 18, 2015)

Didn't check out the translated version, but see whether a Google translate of http://www.belonika.ru/recipes/244 makes sense (though my wife already started to criticize it ) Post any questions.

My wife would use red cabbage opposed to white (just for colour, not traditional). She adds bell peppers. Any good stock is ok. After beetroot has been added, only simmer on very low temperature (without lid) to keep a vibrant colour.


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## mark76 (Jul 18, 2015)

Thanks Riba! But this is quite difficult to follow with Google translate. The first recipe I see that mentions burn marks and plagues . And do you have to throw everything in with a bow? (Jamie Oliver recipe?  .)


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## riba (Jul 18, 2015)

Hehehehehe ok, will have a look when I am home  too annoying on my phone


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## riba (Jul 18, 2015)

But in the meanwhile:http://forums.egullet.org/topic/71923-borscht-recipes/


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## riba (Jul 19, 2015)

Alright, here is my wife's version. (she wrote it down for a person who is not very much into cooking, hence the tone ). 



3-4 beatroots
3 medium potatoes
~200 g cabbage (red or white)
1-2 medium carrots (or one large one)
1 celery stalk
1 red pepper (paprika)
500 g of chicken wings (or any other chicken meat on bone, *not* chicken breast)
1 can of peeled tomatoes
2-3 cloves of garlic
1 onion
7-10 pepper corns
1-2 bay leaves

1. Put the chicken in cold water together with the onion, bay leaves
and pepper corns, bring to boil and reduce the heat. This needs to
cook for about 1,5-2 hours ideally.

2. Meanwhile, peel and chop beatroots finely. Put them into a frying
pan with a bit of oil. Season it with salt and pepper. Fry it untiil
it is coooked (it becomes softer and its color becomes darker) Some
people actually grate the beatroots on a coarse grater, I don't do it
because I like the texture of the beatroots cubes, but you can if you
like.

Put the cooked beatroots into the pan where your soup will be.

3. Peel and chop potatoes coarsely (not as fine as beatroots were).
Put them into the soup pan together with your beatroots

4. Chop the cabbage finely, fry it with a bit of oil, salt and pepper
untill soft (do not let it brown or burn, it taste horrible then )

Actually, I usually skip the cabbage, but my mum says that you cannot
call the soup "borsch" if it does not contain cabbage, then it is
simply a beatroot soup. Oh, well...

5.Peel and chop the carrots. Fry them in a bit of oil with salt and
pepper and add them to the other vegetables.


6. Do the same to the red peper and celery.

7. When the chicken stock is ready, run it through a seave and pour
the stock onto the vegetables.

8. Add the tomatoes from the can (you can buy chopped ones, or you can
just slightly break them up with a knife inside the can. Do not need
to be too careful: the tomatoes fall apart in the soup even more.)

9. Bring the misture to boil very gently and reduce the heat to
minimum. Do not close the pan with a lid at any time.

10. Separate the chicken meat from the bones (chop it if you like) and
add to the soup.

11. Put garlic in too. You can chop it or squeeze it through a garlic
squeezer if you prefer, but you could also just put it in as it is.

12. Taste it for salt: although we added some salt to the fried
vegetables it is usually not enough (unless you added salt to your
boiled chicken. I usually don't, but you can.)

13. Cook gently until the vegetables are cooked. (I usuallt check the
potatoes and carrots.)

14. When the pan is off the heat, you can close it with a lid.

If you need to reheat it later, I'd follow the same advice: no lid and
no boiling hard. If you do one of these, your soup will taste fine,
but the color might change to pale red or even orange


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## riba (Jul 19, 2015)

Serve with sour cream of course. I like a bit of pimento de padron on it too, that adds a nice hint of smoke


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## mark76 (Jul 19, 2015)

Thanks Ribi for the extensive recipe! I'm gonna try it! One question: is borsjt originally made with chicken? (I know there is not one "original" recipe, but just wondering.)


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## icanhaschzbrgr (Jul 19, 2015)

mark76 said:


> Thanks Ribi for the extensive recipe! I'm gonna try it! One question: is borsjt originally made with chicken? (I know there is not one "original" recipe, but just wondering.)


It depends on region, but most often you'll seen either beef (common in Russia) or pork (common in Ukraine) in Borsch recipes. Some recipes list both beef and pork. Haven't seen anyone making Borsch with chicken (not that it's not possible, just very uncommon here).


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## riba (Jul 19, 2015)

Pork would be most common according my Belarusian wife. My wife just happened to have used chicken the time when my mum asked for the recipe (oops, should have mentioned that  )


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## riba (Jul 19, 2015)

This thread brings back memories of a nice borscht in cafe singer, St. Petersburg


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## ptolemy (Jul 23, 2015)

I only had it made by 4-5 different women in my life but key for me was this: it has to taste a bit sweet (from beets and carrots) and tangy (from sour cream). The flavor itself has to be clean and not fatty. As to what meat is used. I don't think it's really important as long it's a slow cooked piece which is not too fatty. I even had it when that piece is taken out, shredded and put back into it.


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