Our family´s Mayday herring

This is our family`s traditional herring dish for May 1st for decades. It is usually made in such a portion, that it will serve several persons or several days for a some less people. Visually, it´s not particularly  exciting, but the taste beats it all. The key is the choice of the fish. Basically one might thing any matjes herring would do, but it is so, so wrong. We have been lucky enough to find a perfec Swedish variety that has not met its match. It is Nordvågs-herring in spiced sauce. Not sweet as a matjes, nor too salty or too spicy, just perfect.

Even though the can contains 500 g of fish dw, we can ingest this on two lunches just two of us together with my wife. Just drain the fish and cut it into some smaller pieces with scissors. And the other ingredients are:

3 - 4 diced onions

6 well cooked eggs

4 dl whipping cream

260 g of small capers dw

Vinegar or liquid from the capers

pinch of sugar

A nice size of a serving dish

Put the ingredient in layers into the dish:

Start with the chopped onions and follow with the cut herring pieces. If you dislike the sharp taste of raw onion, you can keep them a while in warm water and drain well. The taste becomes softer. You can also use shalottes or red onion.

If you like you can follow with the drained capers, but you can also save them into the topping of the whole dish. It does not affect the taste, but the looks. 

The next step would be the diced cooked eggs. The dicing is very easily done with an egg slicer. Slice the eggs twice lengthwise and once across on the width. You can also do it the rough way. Just put the peeled eggs into a bowl and be harsh with a fork...

Then whip the cream. This phase might be a tough one, because you´d have to have a whipped cream also after adding the vinegar. Do not whisk the cream too much before adding the vinegar. Add some sugar and salt until the taste is perfect. Spread out the cream on top of the whole dish and enjoy with fresh cooked potatoes and some sparkling wine or shampagne. The great experience of saltyness, some fat and sweetness. Just great!