Yonder comes yer father, drunk he canna' stand

[venta]

Right...

When doing my shopping today, I bought on a whim some herring for tea. Now, there are some who would describe this as sheer culinary hubris. I have no real grasp of how to cook herring, and the last experiment in that direction (mackerel) was not really a success.

Home, I consulted our recipe-book collection. Rick Stein thought I should make them into fishcakes, which wasn't really what I wanted. Beyond that, everyone was strangely mute on the subject of herring. Except the redoubtable Margeurite Patten, speaking from her dated but invaluable Every Day Cookery; she had lots of ideas, but most of them involved making my herrings into roll mops first.

I decided to improvise, and am now eating what for the sake of argument I'm going to call a fricassé of herring, leek, mushroom and wilted kale in white wine. If I thought you'd let me get away with such pretentious wankery, I might say it was served on a bed of crushed, peppered new potatoes.

I grilled the herring first, then removed the fish from the bones and threw it in the fricassé. This process pretty much underlined why herring has fallen off the menu: in the same way that people now rarely buy shin beef when they can afford steak, you woudn't buy herring when salmon is so cheap. It takes time, and effort. Deboning herring is an unmitigated faff. It is also a snare and a delusion: despite endless painstaking work on my part, as I sat down with my finished meal I observed it bristling with fine bones.

I hate fishbones. I love fish in all forms, from sashimi to cod and chips. I don't care, in general, how gruesome and tentacular my seafood gets. But I hate eating even the tiny, thread-like bones which are alledgedly perfectly harmless.

Am I just doomed never to enjoy herring, kippers, and their like ? The mother tells me that the kippers from The Whitby Catch are quite remarkably bone-free (can hendybear confirm ?) I'll believe it when I see it... kipperz meanz bonez in my experience. As it happens, the fricassé worked out quite well, I'm just not sure it's quite nice enough to justify the fiddliness involved in cooking and the vigilance involved in eating it.

Do any of you cook herring, mackerel or other small awkward oily fish ? If so, what do you do with them ?


[*] The original title of Salt'n'Pepa's '91 single. It was changed after a conversation with their marketing department.

Comments

[metame.livejournal.com]

Do any of you cook herring, mackerel or other small awkward oily fish ? If so, what do you do with them ?

I eat them as roll mops. They're tasty even without much preparation.



Oh, and my research assistant tells me whitebait round here are usually young herrings. And so the bones become almost entirely irrelevant (although I did have one jab me betwixt tooth and gum once, which was muchos ouchos).

[venta.livejournal.com]

The last couple of times I've eaten things like whitebait, the inside of my mouth has swelled up. Not in a scary-anaphyllactic-death sort of way, just in an uncomfortable and unpleasant sort of way.

This is in some way linked in my head with the fact I am eating *bones*. I have no evidence that that is what causes it, though. Give that it's quite unpleasant when it happens, I haven't gone out of my way to investigate.

[metame.livejournal.com]

Sounds *bad*.

[mr-tom.livejournal.com]

There was a piece about kippers on umm, thingy, that Fi Glover radio show this morning.

Anyway - for dinner tonight I had Mackerel with some capers and shallots and butter and all that good stuff, and cooked en papillote.

But then I actually like the process of filleting fish - it's remarkably soothing. Provided you have some large tweezers and a filleting knife, it's all good. If you only have a spoon and a cleaver to hand, it's easier to get the bones out when they're cooked.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I don't have a filleting knife, partly because I'm not sure I'd really know how to use one if I did. I do have decent ordinary knives, though, and de-boning when cooked is still nowhere near easy.

[(Anonymous)]

Herrings, grilled then split open, yield almost all the bones in one fell swoop. Anyone know why bloaters (just as nice and less smelly than kippers) have vanished apart from in bloater paste?

[venta.livejournal.com]

Herrings, grilled then split open, yield almost all the bones in one fell swoop.

No, they don't. Or not for me, anyway.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I get small mackerel, gutted and de-headed and tailed, wrap them in greaseproof paper on their own and put them in a 190 degree oven for 30 minutes. Then I get them out, put some honey inside, finish faffing with the rest of the meal and eat them whole, skin and all, without taking any bones out at all. I usually find about 2 small bones but can eat the rest. They are absolutely lovely (and the skin is crunchy).

[venta.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, so presumably who ever did the de-heading and de-tailing also removed quite a lot of bones ? Or maybe you hust have a much higher bone-eating tolerance than I do.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I don't know...I will have a look when they are raw and see if I can see a backbone. It feels like it still has one. Or maybe yes, they have had the bones taken out by magical bone-removing technique. I get the ones from Sainsburys that come in a tray with 2-3 for £1.50, because there isn't a fish counter.

[floralaetifica.livejournal.com]

Any food that involves deboning is too much effort, in my book.

In the event of a civilisation-destroying cataclysm I will starve. Or follow Amanda around.

[thegreenman.livejournal.com]

Do any of you cook herring, mackerel or other small awkward oily fish ?

Nope.

I leave them in the sea where they are quite happy thank you very much and eat cheese/beans/nuts/whatever....

:)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Damn hippy ;p

[(Anonymous)]

I now have the image of mackerel and herring sitting down, napkins tucked in to a Sunday lunch of nut roast garnished with cheese and aside serving of beans.

W.

[lathany.livejournal.com]

But I hate eating even the tiny, thread-like bones which are alledgedly perfectly harmless.

Yes - I have exactly that problem too. Anchovies are one of my losses from this. The answer appears to be prawns. And tuna.

Lets SING about herring

[(Anonymous)]

"What shall I do with me herrins' head?"

For folkies the answer is obvious. "Make them into loaves of bread".

Yes, OK. But how? Any culinary advice would be welcome.

W.

Not a scoobie, I'm afraid.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

I also don't know how to make their eyes into puddings and pies...

Re: Not a scoobie, I'm afraid.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I think you're worrying about trivial problems. As far as I'm concerned, the biggie is how to start off with some herrin's tails and end up with a barrel of ale.

Re: Not a scoobie, I'm afraid.

[(Anonymous)]

But fins into needles and pins is the easy one.

W.

Re: Not a scoobie, I'm afraid.

[(Anonymous)]

Due to overfishing herring are now becoming rare enough that barter/trade may well work for this one.

W.

[hendybear.livejournal.com]

I can indeed confirm that the Kippers from the Whitby catch are almost entirely without bones. Very Yummy to!

NB posted via VNC to home computer in UK,from Shanghai as LJ is blocked in China Grr, do not expect large updates to my LJ for the coming weeks!Oh and GRIN I bet the IP log for this post is wrong :-)

[ar-gemlad.livejournal.com]

I hate fish bones too. Even though I'm careful to the point of paranoia I have still managed to get a fish bone stuck in the back of my mouth (hooray for mum's with tweezers!) and one stuck next to my wisdom tooth.

Still love sardines though - I just take forever to eat them whilst checking every bit for bones.