Salad “Herring under a fur coat” is simply a must-have on every housewife’s New Year’s table. Preparing this salad is already a New Year's tradition, almost like Olivier salad. It not only looks beautiful but also tastes very good. Each housewife has her own personal recipe for preparing this salad, as well as a secret ingredient or a special cooking technique. Today we will share with you the main secrets of how to cook “Herring under a fur coat! correctly.”

In fact, the salad contains quite simple products: herring, potatoes, carrots, onions, beets, mayonnaise, spices: salt and pepper. There are also recipes with the addition of apples. But we will talk about the classic version of preparing this salad. The main ingredient in the salad, as the name suggests, is herring. For the salad, you can buy marinated whole fish, but in this case you will have to spend quite a lot of time cleaning out the bones. You can also buy herring in oil in a jar, but very often such fish will be too salty and fatty. It is best to buy lightly salted fillet; it is ideal for salad. Such lightly salted fillet will not stand out too much in the salad, but, on the contrary, will complement other ingredients with its taste. 

After we have chosen a delicious fish, we can prepare the vegetables for the salad. Potatoes, carrots and beets need to be boiled. The most important thing is not to overcook these vegetables. For example, if you overcook potatoes, they will crumble and appear like mush in the salad. But if you overcook the beets, they will lose their bright taste, and the salad will no longer be so colorful.  It is best to cook vegetables separately, because each vegetable has its own required cooking time. Vegetables should be boiled with their skins on so they retain their flavor. You should peel vegetables only after they have cooled down. The onion goes into the salad raw, but you can marinate it a little, then it will turn out softer and juicier. For marinating, use sunflower oil, lemon juice or vinegar, salt and pepper. Another little secret, add a little sugar to the onion, then the onion will taste pleasantly sweet.

When everything is ready, you can start assembling the salad. It is best to use a large plate with a recess. Before you start assembling the salad, grease the plate with mayonnaise, this will ensure that the salad will not be dry. The bottom ball of lettuce is herring, then onions. We grease each ball with mayonnaise and sprinkle with black pepper. The third ball of salad is carrots. We grate it on a coarse grater and grease it with mayonnaise. The fourth ball is a potato. It is this ball that should be thoroughly greased with mayonnaise, because potatoes absorb it very well. Also don't forget to salt and pepper the potatoes on top.