Herring*Coat Шуба

When I come to my hometown and my parents home to Riga there is one thing I ask my Mama to cook for me as a special treat. 

I would like to introduce you to my favourite salad! Шуба! Селeдка под Шубой! Literal translation from Russian means Fur Coat or Herring under Fur Coat. It's one of the traditional salads which were and I guess still are cooked for special occasions (this one is a very wintery salad!). This one was born in Soviet times and my Mum is saying she tried it first in the '70ies. 

I always imagined it as a very glamorous herring with pearls under a fur coat. :) 

For the salad you will need:

1 herring

5 eggs

2 small carrots

1 onion

2 potatoes

4 small beetroots

mayonnaise 

Beetroots, eggs, potatoes, carrots need to be boiled until done. Then everything needs to be finely chopped! Beetroots can be shredded.

And then the most important thing! Layering! Each cook and each family has their own order of ingredients.

In my family it goes like this: Herring, onions, potatoes, carrots, eggs, beetroots and then eggs for decoration. You can put mayo after each layer or cover the salad after beetroots, very generously and leave in the fridge for couple of hours or night. In that way all the ingredients absorb mayo and other ingredients flavours! 

 It's delicious and I love it! Makes me think I'm still five years old and it's christmas.
Special thank you to my super lovely Mama who made this beautiful dish! I was trying to assist as much as I could between Instagram snapshots and lots of talking. :)

And it could be made as vegetarian dish! Drop the herring and eggs and swap mayo for olive oil and here we go! :) It will be a different name but very similar flavour.

And what do you like to eat when you come to your parents home? :)