This herring is a Toli Shad (Tenualosa toli) or more familiarly known as terubok in Sarawak. The terubok is also called Chinese herring. Herring are boney/oily fish the later character of which makes them ideal for smoking Small terubok should be fine for kippering.

English/Scottish kippers are usually cold smoked i.e. the fish are smoked but the heat of the smoking fire is not allowed to cook the fish. Hot smoking is when the fish are both smoked and cooked at the same time.

My preparation involves splitting the fish laterally along the spine with a sharp knife. To kipper means to split and cure in brine. British kippers are split from the spine downwards to the belly. The split fish is then splayed open.

My brining was simply to dust the fish on both split sides with salt and then allowing 30 minutes of curing. The dry brined fish was then washed with fresh water and allowed to drip dry. The fish is best dried until the surface is tacky (a pellicle forms). This helps the smoking process (more adhesion). Drying can be by hanging in the sun or in the refrigerator, taking care not to let the product perish in the meantime (a couple of hours in the refrigerator will do). After the surface of the fish is dry enough it was hot smoked indirectly over charcoal and beechwood chips (not directly over the coals). I used hot smoking and to a drier state because I was not going to vacuum pack the product (longer shelf-life that way).

This is the end-result after 6 h of low-heat smoking
The kippers are traditional still very soft and pliable at the finish but you can prepare them to your own preferred level of dryness/moisture content

Kippers are normally cooked or jugged before eating but in my case, these can be consumed as is since they were already cooked during hot smoking. However, since my kippers were on the dry side, I jugged mine by light boiling in a little water with a knob of butter. Cook as much or as little to your preferred level saltiness in the fish: