Herring Under Fur Coat (Herring Salad)
June 27th, 2009 in Salads by Julia Volhina
Total cooking time: 3h
To prepare russian herring salad, “Herring Under Fur Coat”, you need to have whole salted herring. And of course you need to know how to fillet it, so read this post if you don’t.
Herring Under Fur Coat is a word-to-word translation of russian name of this salad: “Seledka pod Shuboj”, which represents salted herring under a “coat” of boiled vegetables. So, as you’ve probably guessed, you will also need boiled vegetables (potatoes, carrots and beats) and green onions. In the rest, this is 5-layers salad with a lot of mayonnaise.
This salad requires some time and agility to assemble it, also it needs at least 12 hours for layers to soak after it is assembled. So make sure you have enough time before you plan to serve it.
Ingredients:
- 1 big or 2 small whole herrings (pickled with a salt)
- 1 big potato
- 3-4 medium size carrots
- 3 medium size beets
- Bunch of green onions
- Mayonnaise
How to make, step-by-step:
-
Prepare ingredients: boil carrots, potatoes and beets for salad, let them cool till room temperature and and skin; fillet salted herrings:
Herring Under Fur Coat (Herring Salad) Recipe: Step 1 -
Take big flat plate, grate boiled potato on big slots of grater and form round layer in the middle of the plate (make sure you have about 2 inches left till the edges of the plate):
Herring Under Fur Coat (Herring Salad) Recipe: Step 2 -
Dress layer of grated potato with mayonnaise (yes, you need liquid mayo which is easy to pour):
Herring Under Fur Coat (Herring Salad) Recipe: Step 3 -
Dice herring fillets (and pick bones if you see any) and layer it above potato:
Herring Under Fur Coat (Herring Salad) Recipe: Step 4 -
Add chopped green onions as third layer and dress with mayonnaise:
Herring Under Fur Coat (Herring Salad) Recipe: Step 5 -
Cover whole thing with an even layer of boiled carrots grated on big slots, use your hands to form the shape:
Herring Under Fur Coat (Herring Salad) Recipe: Step 6 -
Spread mayonnaise on the surface:
Herring Under Fur Coat (Herring Salad) Recipe: Step 7 -
Cover whole thing with an even layer of boiled beets grated on big slots:
Herring Under Fur Coat (Herring Salad) Recipe: Step 8 -
And again cover it with mayonnaise:
Herring Under Fur Coat (Herring Salad) Recipe: Step 9 -
Let salad to rest at room temperature for 2 hours, after put it to the fridge. Prepare this salad in advance, it needs at least several hours of “rest” after assembled so layers can soak juices of each other and mayonnaise. I usually prepare this salad night before I am planning to serve it:
Herring Under Fur Coat (Herring Salad) Recipe: Step 10 -
Herring Under Fur Coat or Seledka pod Shuboj (how it is called in Russian) is ready to be served:
Herring Under Fur Coat (Herring Salad) Recipe
can i use Mackerel for this salad?
Salted one you can, you can also use salted/smoked salmon, it will work great too, just that it will be a bit less budget version of the salad and you will need to figure out amounts.
I linked back to this recipe on my blog and recommended it to all my friends 🙂 Thanks for a great step-by-step explanation.
Thank you!
This is how I learned to do it from my grandma. Nothing but praise every time I make it for Russian company, even compare to other shuba they’ve had. Herring on the bottom lying on a very thin layer of vegetable oil, chopped into small cubes. Whole fish is best, but lightly marinated is more appropriate for western palettes. Thin layer of very thinly sliced non-sweet onions on top. It’s the only ‘sharp’ flavour in the salad. The onions might seems bitter, but you need them to contrast the sweet vegetables. The boiled potatoes go on top on the onions.… Read more »
Hi! I tried this recipe last Saturday. It was fun to cook it, though I found it easier to mash potatoes and carrots with fork instead of grating them. I ran out of mayonnaise during cooking, but the salad was a success. I let it rest in the fridge till Sunday (yesterday). I ate it right away with my wife, and we enjoyed it. Thanks for the recipe!
I am glad you liked it 🙂
Sorry to double post, the fist layer I mentioned in the last comment should be the last one you layer into the salad bowl. When you put the salad upside down, the fish would be at the bottom. ^.^