Red herring salad

Ingredients for 4 servings:

• 2 fish(s) (matjes herring), whole, alternatively 4 fillets
• 2 small apples
• 2 m.-large gherkins
• 5 m.-large beetroot
• ½ celery
• 2 eggs
• 100 g chicken, cooked, if required
• 1 lime(s), the juice
• 200 g sour cream
• 1 tsp mustard, medium hot
• 1 tsp sugar
• Pepper, freshly ground

Instructions

Working time approx. 1 hour; Total time approx. 1 hour

mild and light

The following ingredients should be prepared at least 3-4 hours before mixing so that they can cool down. Brush the beetroot and boil in water with a dash of lime juice for 90 minutes, rinse well and peel. Grate on a coarse grater. Alternatively, bake the beetroot in the oven like jacket potatoes. Simply brush the bulbs while washing, dry them and wrap them in foil. After 60 minutes at 200°C, rinse well in cold water, peel and grate. Mix a little water with the juice of half a lime. Peel the celery, slice it and boil in this water. After the mixture has boiled, continue to simmer on a low heat for another 15 minutes. Reserve a little of the stock. Hard-boil the eggs. Now let the above ingredients cool down. Grab the middle bone from the matjes herring at the head end and pull out. Peel the apples and mix them with the juice of half a lime. Chop all ingredients very finely and mix. If desired, you can add the chicken at this point. For the marinade, mix the sour cream with pepper, mustard, 1 teaspoon of sugar, and 4 tablespoons of the celery stock. Salt is not necessary, as the herring is already salted. Carefully fold in the marinade and let the herring salad marinate in the refrigerator for at least 24 hours. Before serving, season again with lime juice and sugar (carefully, the beetroot and apples provide enough sweetness) and remove from the refrigerator 1 hour before eating. This herring salad tastes great with fresh white or whole-grain toast. Unlike acidic and fatty industrial products, this herring salad has such a mild flavor that you can safely spoon it onto toast or white bread without having to spread it on bread in homeopathic quantities. I got this recipe from my mother, who in turn got it from her mother. However, they used mayonnaise instead of sour cream, which is too rich for me.