Goodwood Herrings
From The Herring Book, c1950
Original Receipt from 'The Herring Book' issued by The Herring Industry Board, London about 1950INGREDIENTS: 6 fresh herrings, 6 large tomatoes, 4 tablespoonfuls breadcrumbs, a tablespoonful butter or dripping, a little lemon rind grated, a small minced onion or shallot, a tablespoonful of chopped parsley, a pinch of dried thyme.
METHOD: Clean, scale and behead the herrings, but leave in the roe, then twist them head to tail and fasten with a tiny wooden skewer or cocktail stick. Slice the top off each tomato, using a very sharp knife, and keep the slice. Scoop out the inside of each tomato, discard the hard core, keep the pulp. Put the bread-crumbs, herbs, chopped onion or shallot, lemon rind, pepper and salt into a basin to this add enough of the tomato pulp to make it moist. Fill each tomato shell with this, and put a bit of butter on top, then lay the slice of tomato to cover. Set a tomato in the centre of each curled herring. Put in a greased fireproof dish, add A few tablespoonfuls of water and cook for 20 minutes in a fairly hot oven. Serve an the dish in which they are cooked.