How do you serve rollmops?

October 6, 2022 7:29 AM

I bought a jar of them. I thought about just shoveling them into the maw, but how are they prepared for civilised people? I am Australian and have never seen them before.
posted by adept256 to Food & Drink (14 answers total)

They are delicious with rye bread and sliced raw onion or with potato salad or boiled potatoes. Also great as part of a bagel spread -- bagels, cream cheese, capers, thinly sliced red onion, sliced tomato, rollmops. But straight out of the jar is 100% acceptable.
posted by carrioncomfort at 7:47 AM on October 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

Onion and pickles on a hotdog bun, and pretend I’m in Amsterdam…
posted by Ardnamurchan at 8:01 AM on October 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

straight from the jar, over the kitchen sink, leaning slightly forward so you don't get rollmop goo on your shirt — and beware of sticks holding 'em together ...

but unrolled on rye crispbread will also do.
posted by scruss at 8:02 AM on October 6, 2022 [14 favorites]

If you have good fresh cucumber and radish, ample thin slices of both or either. Medium boiled eggs, halved and sprinkled with caraway, paprika, salt and pepper, dollop of mayonnaise. If you don’t have good rye, swerve from bread to crackers, like a seeded flatbread or a bagel crisp. Definitely add capers if you like them.
posted by Mizu at 8:18 AM on October 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

My family used to eat them with boiled potatoes (hot, not like a salad), thinly sliced onions and potentially pickles.
posted by koahiatamadl at 8:23 AM on October 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

Well-chilled, near-frozen potato-based vodka, of course. Sour cream works nicely with the herring itself.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 8:40 AM on October 6, 2022 [3 favorites]

With potato-salad, specifically a German-style potato salad with lots of onions and a creamy dressing, as in: with full cream instead of oil or mayo in the dressing. Raw onions and pickles wouldn't be bad either.

I don't mind them on good whole grain rye bread either, with slices of red onion on top, and capers.

I think the above are traditional forms, below come the more radical alternatives:

Or with a curry salad: finely dice one or two apples, a celery stick and a white onion. Take a half cup of mayo and season it with salt, pepper as much curry powder as you like. I like to add a little extra powdered or freshly grated ginger too. Mix the fruit and veg into the mayo, and let it rest for at least 15 minutes but not more than an hour.
Butter a slice of whole grain rye bread, unroll a mops on top of it and cover with delicious curry "salad". (I mean, it's more like a sauce, but we call it a salad).

You can make a similar "salad" with pickled red beets and onion, also very good. Be wild and put a bit of caraway into it.
posted by mumimor at 8:43 AM on October 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

We're Dutch Jews via Long Island, NY, and when I was a kid we ate them as part of a special occasion grandparents-are-visiting lunch spread. The full deal also had bagels with trimmings, good bread and butter, and chicken salad (none of us kept kosher until one uncle married someone who did).

Maybe the rollmops sometimes went on the bread or bagels? That would have been good too. But mostly I remember them being a kind of freestanding side dish.
posted by nebulawindphone at 8:49 AM on October 6, 2022

I seem to remember being in Scheveningen-by-the-sea [NL] and encouraged to eat them (straight from the barrel at a concession) like a gannet chick: head thrown back, gullet open, minimal use of teeth. Not bad.
posted by BobTheScientist at 8:54 AM on October 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

My go-to is having them on Finn Crisp or any other hard rye cracker (soft rye bread is great, too).

But I agree with people that straight into the mouthparts is also just fine - they're kind of intentionally constructed as a finger food, no?
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:44 AM on October 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

BobTheScientist, that sounds like salty herring, not rolmops.

In the Netherlands, rolmops* is eaten as a snack, often with beer and liquor, along with savoury things like bitterballen, cubes of cheese and slices of sausage.

*Yes, that is a singular word. For plural, we use 'rolmopsen'.
posted by Too-Ticky at 9:50 AM on October 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

Chuck them on on Cruskits or buttered toast with a generous dollop of mayo seasoned with good old Keens curry powder, or a squirt of that sriracha ketchup they sell at Woolies and Coles now (a variation on a tin of sardines in tomato sauce). Legend.
posted by some little punk in a rocket at 2:54 AM on October 7, 2022

BobTheScientist: encouraged to eat them like a gannet chick: head thrown back, gullet open

Which will invite any nearby seagull to go intercept that herring before it reaches your mouth.
posted by Stoneshop at 7:02 AM on October 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

I feel a need to warn you of the.. well, you'll be able to clear a large room after. Just in case you have plans later in the day.
posted by Dynex at 9:30 PM on October 7, 2022