Grilled Smoked Herring Salad - Recipe by Emiko Davies.

Ingredients

1 smoked herring
125mL hot full-cream milk
1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
3-4 radicchio leaves, torn
1 celery stalk with leaves, thinly sliced
60g cooked borlotti beans
1 hard-boiled egg, quartered
1/4 green apple, skin on, finely sliced
Few parsley sprigs, finely chopped
2 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
1 Tbs red wine vinegar, or lemon juice

Method

Place the herring in a container with a lid and pour the hot milk over it. Leave to cool, place in the fridge for 8 hours and then drain of the milk and rinse in fresh water.

Pat completely dry. To obtain the fillets, cut the head off the fish, then using the backbone as a guide, slice lengthways just above the backbone and as close to the bones as possible.

Remove the backbone and any large bones that may be remaining, guts and cut off the tail. You should now have two clean fillets.

Grill the fillets of herring in a griddle pan over a high heat for 2 minutes, then let cool and break apart with your hands.

In the meantime, if you want to take the edge off the red onion, soak the slices in a bowl of hot water with a splash of red wine vinegar while you prepare the salad. You can also choose to leave them as is; the bite goes quite nicely with the herring.

Arrange the salad with radicchio, celery, borlotti, egg quarters, apple and drained onion slices.

Scatter over the herring and parsley and dress with the extra-virgin olive oil and vinegar. You probably won’t need salt on this salad, but adjust to your taste.

Credits: This is an edited extract from Cinnamon & Salt by Emiko Davies, published by Hardie Grant Books, RRP $40. Available in stores nationally.

Photo Credits: Photography: ©Emiko Davies