Although we have now moved on and everything is metric, time was when liquid measures in the UK were “Imperial”. In the kitchen, even butter and flour was measured in cups rather than by weight.
This is all well and good – but when I emigrated from South Africa to the UK in the 1960s, South Africa had changed from measuring in cups and ounces to metric. All my mother’s recipes were still in the old measurements. That would have been perfect as the UK had not moved to metric but for one thing…..
One of our favourite recipes (especially for Jewish holidays) was herring in mustard sauce. At home the salted herrings were pulled out of a barrel by the fishmonger and then soaked, filleted and cleaned. I had no idea where to buy those so just used rollmops which I unrolled and cut into pieces.
So far so good: I made the sauce, which was very runny. Help! I had a book which gave remedies for cooking problems, reckoned this was pretty much like a custard and added an extra egg. It was better but still wasn't quite right so I added another egg and it was perfect. Thinking all the time that this was my cooking incompetence I left the recipe as it was and just added two extra eggs.
I was asked for the recipe by someone and duly gave it to her. Several months later she castigated me for giving her the wrong recipe, as it didn’t work – “All you had to say was that you didn’t want to give it to me”. I told her about how I “fixed” what I thought was my problem but she didn’t want to know. I was mortified.
A while after that I found out that South Africa had used American measures and the measures in the UK were Imperial. Most of the time it didn’t matter but when proportions are critical it did. An Imperial pint was 20 fluid ounces and an American pint was 16 fluid ounces – so I had been using too much liquid all along. Here is the amended recipe – in metric!
6 rollmops, unroll and discard the bits!
4 bay leaves
12 peppercorns
2 large onions sliced
Cut herrings into largish pieces and alternate in layers in a jar with the onions, peppercorns and bay leaves. (You can use a bowl with a cover.)
Sauce
360 ml white wine or cider vinegar
2 teas dry mustard
3 large eggs well beaten
120 ml double cream
110 grams sugar
In a double boiler heat up the vinegar and sugar. In a separate bowl, beat eggs, mustard, salt and pepper. Add the hot mixture to the egg beating constantly. Return to the double boiler and stir until it becomes thick and custard like. Cool. Whip cream and add to cooled mixture and whip all together. Pour over the herring mixture and refrigerate for at least 24 hours.
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