Pieces of pale herring fillet among soft golden onion slices in buttery juices, in a shallow earthenware dish, with a small pot of mustard beside it. — Pieces of salt herring stewed with soft onions and butter.

Stewed Salt Herring with Onion (1653)

Name: Stewed Salt Herring with Onion
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 12 h 35 min
Cuisine: French
Ingredients: 400 g salt herring fillets; 300 g onions (about 2 medium); 40 g unsalted butter; 120 ml water; 1 tbsp prepared mustard, to serve

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Salt herring soaked overnight, cut in pieces and simmered with onion and butter, the second way with salted herrings in La Varenne’s The French Cook of 1653.

By The Forgotten MenuPublished Oct 31, 2026

Recipe makes: 3 servings
Prep: 15 min
Cook: 20 min
Total: 12 hr 35 min

The salt herring soaks for 12 hours in the refrigerator before it is cooked, so start the night before. After that it takes about 35 minutes.

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Pieces of salt herring stewed with soft onions and butter.

The story behind the recipe

Salt herring stewed with onion and butter is the plainest herring dish in The French Cook, and the one closest to the barrels of the Dutch trade. La Varenne’s English translator printed it in London in 1653 as the “Another way” under “Herrings salted,” among the first courses for lean days. The first way roasts the soaked fish and serves it with mustard or with pease. This one cuts it in pieces and seethes it, simmers it, with onion and butter.

Why does the recipe start with “unsalt them”?

Because the herring arrived already salted. The recipe just before it on the page, for salted mackerel, tells the cook to slit the fish along the belly and salt it. The herring recipe skips that step and opens “When you will use them,” as if the cook had bought them that way. The book’s next recipe shows the difference between the two herrings of the trade: red herrings are only half salted and then set “a smoaking in the chimney,” while these salted ones keep all their salt until the cook draws it out with water.

Making it today

Salt herring is sold as whole fish or fillets in dry salt or brine at many Scandinavian, Eastern European, Jewish and Caribbean grocers. Check the label: herring already pickled in vinegar, like rollmops, won’t do. An overnight soak in the refrigerator with two changes of water follows modern salt herring recipes, since La Varenne gives no time. Softening the onions in the butter before the fish goes in, and the splash of water, are our choices. The mustard comes from his first way.

The same barrel herring, soaked the same way, goes into the far grander Herring Pie with Pears and Dates (1623). Whether the war of 1665 really kept the herring busses in port, and what the tax records say, is weighed in What Happened to the Dutch Herring Fishery in the War of 1665?

Herrings salted. When you will use them, unsalt them, [d]raine and drie them, then rost them and [s]erve with mustard or with pease.
Another way. You may serve them stewed, cutting them [i]nto peeces, and seething them with onion [a]nd butter.

François Pierre de La VarenneThe French Cook, translated by I. D. G. (London: Charls Adams, 1653), p. 173, no. 85

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Ingredients

For 3 servings. Quantities are shown as written.

Quantities as written here, for 3 servings.

Salt herring fillets400 g
Onions (about 2 medium)300 g
Unsalted butter40 g
Water120 ml
Prepared mustard, to serve1 tbsp

Ingredients as written here

400 g salt herring fillets
300 g onions (about 2 medium)
40 g unsalted butter
120 ml water
1 tbsp prepared mustard, to serve

Equipment

Large bowl with a cover
Wide sauté pan or frying pan with a lid
Instant-read thermometer

Instructions

The night before, put the salt herring fillets in the large bowl and cover them generously with cold water. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for 12 hours, pouring off the water and adding fresh cold water twice.
Drain the herring, pat the fillets dry with paper towels, and cut them into pieces about 4 cm (1½ inches) long.
Halve the onions and slice them thinly.
Melt the unsalted butter in the wide pan over medium-low heat. Add the onions and cook them, stirring now and then, for 10 minutes, until soft and pale gold.
Pour in the water and lay the herring pieces on the onions in one layer. Cover and simmer gently for 6 to 8 minutes, until the herring is opaque, flakes easily and the thickest piece reads 63°C (145°F).
Spoon the herring and onions onto warm plates with the buttery juices, and serve the prepared mustard on the side.

Nutrition

340calories per serving

Recipe makes: 3 servings
Servings: 3

Estimated per serving (3) from USDA FoodData Central values for raw Atlantic herring (standing in for soaked salt herring), onions and butter. Soaked salt herring keeps much of its salt.

Recipe notes

When adjusting quantities

Use a pan wide enough to hold the herring pieces in one layer on the onions; for a double batch, use two pans.

Notes

Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the servings.

La Varenne gives no amounts, times or heat: the quantities, the soaking time, cooking the onions first, the water and the mustard on the side are our choices. Salt cures vary, and soaked salt herring stays salty, so the recipe adds no salt. For La Varenne’s first way, broil the soaked and dried fillets for 3 to 4 minutes a side, until they read 63°C (145°F), and serve them with mustard or a dish of buttered peas. Keep the herring in the refrigerator, at 4°C (40°F) or below, while it soaks. Fish should reach 63°C (145°F), as the US government’s safe minimum temperature chart advises. Refrigerate leftovers within 2 hours and eat them within a day. Contains fish and milk (butter); the mustard contains mustard.

Scaling changes the ingredients only; pan sizes and cooking times need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.