T.G. I. F. gratin

Thank God It's Friday. It has been a long, busy week at work and I really am thankful for the week end stretching in front of me: I am looking forward to little feet pattering into our room in the morning, small warm bodies trampling piling on top of us, breakfast together and two whole days to spend with my family.

My Friday recipe is fish-based.

Wait, all this talk of being thankful to God and fish on Friday...no, we are not strict Catholics, we are not churchgoers at all really. Our family is a mix of religions and cultures, not as common here as it is in other places. My family tree includes German protestants, Polish Catholics and New York Jews (of German descent). My husband's family is Sicilian Catholic and I too was brought up in Catholic Italy. So there is a reason why my parents and my husband&I decided to let our children choose their creed growing up. We do teach our children about God and values that are important to us but we try to do it with a broader scope, encompassing things we agree with in many religions. We want our children to grow up respecting and knowing more about other possibilities. I know many may disagree strongly and I realize broaching the subject of religion on  a food blog is perhaps inappropriate. I apologize if I am offending anyone in any way. The reason I am writing about this is because I believe strongly that food and the pleasure of sitting at a table with family and friends is something all cultures and thus all religions share and as a consequence I firmly believe that eating together and feeling the same enjoyment really is a way for people of different beliefs to grow closer and understand each other better. Isn't it true that we are what we eat, in all senses, and that teaching others the recipes we grew up eating is a way of teaching them to understand where we come from, our history and our heritage?

So I am not posting about fish because it is Friday, although it happens to be just the right day for many. I just happened to find fresh herring at the supermarket and bought it on a whim, only to realize I had never made herring before. It was often present at the table when I was growing up, in sour cream at my Nana's in New York, pickled with vinegar and sugar the German way or on the Christmas Smorgasbord (Julbord) in the years my mother lived in Sweden.

The recipe was funnily enough inspired by a Swedish Christmas dish that does not have herring in it called Janssons Frestelse (literally Jansson's Temptation), and it is a twist on a Dauphinoise, or basically a cream-based potato gratin with layered potatoes, onions and herring (Jansson's Tempation is made with different, smaller fish of the same family, pickled sprats).

Whether you are Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, Buddhist or Hindu; whether you are South American,  French, Chinese, Russian  or Kenyan; whether you are a Texan meat lover or an Australian fish-eating vegetarian, this dish will warm your heart and soul.

Ingredients

approx. 1 large potato

8/10 herring filets (approx. 1 kg)

1 large golden onion

200ml cream (and a little milk if needed)

butter

salt

pepper

breadcrumbs

Clean the herring, discarding the skin and bones and cutting the filets into approx. 2cm strips. Thinly slice the potato (I kept the skin on) and onion. I used my favorite mandoline to do this. Grease an oven dish with butter and layer the potatoes, fish and onions in this order, sprinkling the last of the three layers with salt and pepper and a few small chunks of butter. Add another layer, proceeding the same way. Pour in the cream and if it is not enough to cover the layers, add in some milk (or more cream if you prefer). Sprinkle with breadcrumbs and pop into a pre-heated oven at 200°C for 45 minutes to an hour.