Baltic herrings with leak and mushrooms

Baltic herring is scandinavian fish. Usually eaten pickled, at least in my family and friend families. There are few other typical ways to make these wonderful fishes. One is oven baked, mainly with cream or tomato sause, and the other is pan fried. Third is warmed smoked, which is awesome dish, especially with finnish rye bread.

Today I made oven baked baltic herrings a bit different way. No cream, no tomato but much gentle flavor from leak and mushrooms.

Oven baked Baltic herrings
For 4-6 persons
750 g baltic herrings
1 bundle of dill chopped
200 g leak
250 mushrooms
1 tbsp canola oil
1 lemon juice
Salt & black pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 200 C. 
Chop leak  and cut mushrooms in half or into quarters. Heat the oil in a skillet over a medium heat. Add leaks and mushrooms and cook until softened.  Season with salt and black pepper. Move leaks and mushrooms from skillet to ovenproof dish.
Put baltic herrings, skin side down on the cutting board. Sprinkle fillets salt and black pepper. Sprinkle the fillets with dill. Wrap the fillets into rolls and place them in an ovenproof dish on top of the leaks and mushrooms. 
Sprinkle lemon juice over the fillet rolls. Bake in the oven 30 minutes.

With this beer is the only choice for drink, if you want anything with alcohol. Non-alcoholic, and my preference, is cold Finnish mineral water.

Seljanka - Russian style soup

Fall is the  perfect time for warm soups. It is not so cold yet, that you start dreaming about the robust stews, but enough, to long something warm and comforting. For me Russian flavours represent that feeling, -also in a winter. And few of my wintertime favourites are Russian cuisines. But now my taste buds wanted soup and fish.

So I decided to make some Seljanka. Seljanka is Russian soup made of fish, meat, mushrooms (e.g. ceps) or sausages. The soup is flavoured with tomato and something that adds sourness. The most popular sources for sourness are pickeled gherkin, capers, lemon, olives and sauerkraut. I chose fish, capers and gherkin for my soup.
 

Fish Seljanka
For 4 persons
400 g potatoes
1 large carrot
1 onion
1 small clove garlic
1/4 fennel
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tbsp tomato puree
400 g salmon
800-1000 ml fish stock
1 tbsp capers
1/2 small pickled gherkin
Salt & black pepper

 Cut peeled potatoes and carrots to nice size cubes or to other shape. Peel and chop the onion and garlic. Cut the fennel thin slices. Heat the oil in a pot over medium heat. Cook onion and fennel few minutes, add garlic and cook a minute or so. Add potatoes, carrots and tomato puree and cook some more. Add fish stock, bring to boil and simmer until potatoes are cooked.
Add salmon, capers and chopped pickeled gherkin. Season with salt and black pepper.
Let soup rest few minutes, until salmon is nice and tender, but not overcooked.
Sprinkle dill over the soup and serve with sour cream.