I’ve told you about Edmond Pierre in Haiti and the chiquetaille we used to eat on his boat. In fact there were two different types of chiquetaille, one made with dry, salted cod and the other with dry, salted and smoked herring.
I wanted to make the herring chiquetaille, so I went to the fish monger and we had a long conversation about the type of fish I needed. He thought it was kippers and I wasn’t sure, but I thought I would try the kippers. Wrong. The flesh of the kippers is too soft, white mildly salted and smoked. The flesh of the herring that they had in Haiti was hard and dry, heavily salted, heavily smoked and a mahogany color.
This salad/spread that I made was delicious, but not Haitian chiquetaille d’hareng fume. Mound it on top of salad greens or spread it on small toast pieces to accompany cocktails.
Does anybody out there know what kind of fish I should be asking for? I have the recipe but I can’t find the fish.
Kipper Salad
6 kippers
1 onion, finely chopped
4 shallots, finely chopped
6 cloves fresh garlic, finely chopped
1/2 red bell pepper, finely diced
1 carrot, finely chopped
1 branch celery, chopped
1 large scotch bonnet, seeded and finely chopped
6 whole cloves
1/2 cup vinegar
1 1/4 cup olive oil
Black pepper to taste
Blanch the kippers in boiling water, then remove the bones and skin. Don’t worry too much about the thread like bones, they are harmless.
Shred the herring flesh with your fingers and then mix with the remaining ingredients. Serve immediately or store in jars in the refrigerator.
Yum. I love this kind of dish, and am sure it was good even with kippers. Perhaps you should ask for “hareng saur, mais surtout très sec” ?
Yes, I mentioned dry hareng saur to the fish monger and he thinks that he might be able to find some of that but it’s an old recipe, rarely made in France anymore. Still, he will look.
How about smoked mackerel – it might make a difference? They sell the salted (but I don’t think they’re smoked) herrings here in Spain, maybe they would work? Could send you some to try although they might be a bit stinky!
Thanks Chica. No, it has to be herring, smoked, dried and salted. It looks like the fish you see hanging in African markets but without the flies 😀
Love this sort of thing. I’m lucky to have these guys just up the coast – http://www.kipper.co.uk/
Yes, you are!
Wonderful – kippers are fantastic, particularly at breakfast…
I’ve never had them for breakfast. Do you cook them or heat them in some way?
Boil them gently and serve on toast. Simple!
Delicious! I imagine it’s just a different style of salting and smoking to preserve he fish more – you might get some in Paris around Boulevard Barbès or you could try home curing…
Thank you Mad. I don’t want to home cure fish but thanks for the tip because Paris has a large Haitian community.
The market is under the Metro line at Barbés-Rochechouart on Wednesday and Saturday mornings. I can’t promise you’ll find what you want, but it’s worth visiting regardless 😉
Thanks Mad. I know won’t be disappointed because I love markets even if I don’t find what I want. Something will be bought 😀
…and it’s the African and Arabic quartier, so there are lots of interesting shops nearby 🙂
That’s even better because some Africans used dried, salted fish in their cuisine.
…and afterwards you can get on the Metro and go for lunch in Belleville – it’s about 6 stops 😉
I don’t do metro 🙂
It’s a short taxi ride 😉
Voila 🙂
I have no idea what you’re looking for but it still looks very nice my friend!
I’ll find it and make it right.
I love the ingredients shot.
Thank you Conor. Almost art 🙂
Kipper salad seems so easy to make, but very diverse in flavors.
http://www.khoasinclair.co
It was easy. Try it Khoa.
Hareng saur is bokking here in NL, which is quite common. I’ve also seen in in Spanish markets. It is hard and dry, not at all like a kipper. Hope you can find it there.
Thank you Colin. I will ask the fish monger for hareng saur and hope he bokking finds it 😀
I think what you are looking for is Red Herring- I’ve bought it in UK some years ago and it fits the description. I haven’t seen it for some time, though I believe it is still made for export. Any help?
I’ve only heard of “red herring” in a sentence, meaning distraction. Are you trying to distract me? 😀
No, it’s a genuine foodstuff much used in Lent during the Middle Ages in England and later, and produced for export to the tropics at least until recently. If memory serves me it is described by Jane Grigson in English Food (Penguin). I bought and experimented with some in Leeds, UK, about 1982. They are like very salty, heavy-smoked, shriveled kippers except not split open. Even after long soaking I found them overpowering but I tried them plain with butter to see what they are like. Maybe, though, they are what you want, if you can find them (if they are still made!). It seems from the following extract to have been a speciality of Great Yarmouth (Norfolk, England). The only internet reference I could easily locate is a late 16th-century essay in its praise; 34 pages, but last para copied below. So no, it wasn’t a plaisanterie.
NASHE’S LENTEN STUFF (1599)
Alas, poor hunger-starved muse, we shall have some spawn of a goose-quill, or overworn
pander, quirking and girding, Was it so hard driven that it had nothing to feed upon but red herring? Another drudge of the pudding-house (all whose lawful means to live by
throughout the whole year will scarce purchase him a red herring) says I might as well
have writ of a dog’s turd (in his teeth, surreverence). But let none of these scum of the
suburbs be too vinegar tart with me, for if they be, I’ll take mine oath upon a red herring
and eat it, to prove that their fathers, their grandfathers, and their great-grandfathers, or
any other of their kin, were scullions’ dish-wash, & dirty draff and swill, set against a red
herring. The puissant red herring, the golden Hesperides red herring, the Meonian red
herring, the red herring of Red Herrings’ Hall, every pregnant peculiar of whose
resplendent laud and honour to delineate and adumbrate to the ample life were a work
that would drink dry fourscore and eighteen Castalian fountains of eloquence, consume
another Athens of facundity, and abate the haughtiest poetical fury twixt this and the
burning zone and the tropic of Cancer. My conceit is cast into a sweating-sickness with
ascending these few steps of his renown; into what a hot broiling Saint Laurence fever
would it relapse then, should I spend the whole bag of my wind in climbing up to the
lofty mountain crest of his trophies? But no more wind will I spend on it but this: Saint
Denis for France, Saint James for Spain, Saint Patrick for Ireland, Saint George for
England, and the red herring for Yarmouth.
I’m not at home for a few days but if I can find out more I’ll tell you; to me it’s an interesting historic curiosity.
What an interesting excerpt! Still, I don’t think they are the same thing, otherwise the Haitians would call them hareng rouge instead of hareng fume; there were African slaves in Haiti as early as 1505 and the chiquetaille is definitely a creation of the descendants of these slaves.
HI,
I am Haitian and I used to eat that pretty frequently. To the best of my knowledge the fish that is used is herrings. I don’t know where you live but, it can be found in most Hispanic markets…
Yes. The chiquetaille I’ve eaten were either made with morue(cod) or hareng fume(herring). I still haven’t found the right one.