Cooking with Herring...

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Having decided I can't really take the prices of standard fish, i've been experimenting. Tonight after HM beetroot & lovage soup, we had grilled bream fillets on a bed of dill from the garden and lemon, with boiled spuds, broad beans from the garden and a sauce made from onion, mushrooms and smetana. Was lovely.

Anyhow, in the garden, I've got spuds, chives, parsley, salad leaves, nasturtiums, herb robert, borage, mint, sage, angelica, lovage, roses, broad beans and suchlike. The peas, beans, carrots and tomatoes aren't anywhere near ready yet. The peas and beans are so poorly, I don't think they are going to do much this year.

Indoors, I'll usually have carrots, onions, garlic, tomatoes, that kind of thing, along with random condiments, spices and seasonings. Milk, cheese, eggs, butter, soured cream on good weeks.



Anyhow, I'm thinking of going for the lesser used fishes - and Herring, at £1.25/lb in the fishmonger, is catching my attention.


Does anyone have suggestions on how best to prepare, cook and serve it? I like the jars and tins of herring in sweet onion, dill and sour cream, or mustard, as seen on plates at IKEA (:D), but I want to make it good enough that nobody is going to think I'm getting it because it's so cheap, but because it's so good. And it would be nice to know before I start whether there are rock hard and razor sharp gill plates and bones like in sea bass, so I can get my knives sharpened in advance

faerie~spangles

Haven't had herring in years.

Used to do it in pinhead oatmeal and fry in butter.

Possession

Jamie Oliver likes herring, so he has a few recipes for it, however I don't so I haven't tried them!
http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/fish-recipes/mediterranean-style-herring-linguine
http://www.jamieoliver.com/magazine/recipes-view.php?title=herring-tacos

Herring do have a lot of bones. I'd get the fishmonger to do it (because I'm lazy) but if not Delia tells you how to do it here;
http://www.deliaonline.com/how-to-cook/fish-and-shellfish/how-to-bone-a-herring-trout-or-mackerel.html