Salmon or steelhead roe freed from its skein, brined for ten minutes and packed in a jar: home-made “salmon caviar,” bright orange and popping. Eat it on blini, rice or toast, or finish it ikura-style with soy and sake.
Untested: I have not cooked this one yet. It is here because the Offal dive needed it, and it is adapted from the source named in the Notes.
Ingredients
- 1 to 2 skeins fresh steelhead or salmon roe (about 1 pint of eggs)
Brine
- 1/2 cup kosher salt
- 1 quart ice-cold water
Directions
- Free the eggs. Split the skeins. Either rub them, membrane side up, over a wide-mesh cooling rack set over a bowl so the eggs fall through, or massage them free in a bowl of water at 105–115 °F (hotter water starts to cook them).
- Rinse. Rinse the eggs in a fine sieve under cold water and pick out any remaining membrane.
- Brine. Dissolve the salt in the ice water and add the eggs. Taste after 5 minutes. Shaw’s preferred time is 10 minutes; up to 30 minutes is possible but very salty.
- Drain and pack. Drain well, pack into a clean glass jar and refrigerate.
- Ikura-style, optional. Marinate the brined eggs briefly in soy sauce with a little sake, mirin and dashi, to taste.
Notes
Source Adapted from Hank Shaw, “How to Make Caviar,” Hunter Angler Gardener Cook (honest-food.net). The ikura marinade follows Just One Cookbook’s description; no quantities for it were recorded.
Keeping Shaw says up to two weeks refrigerated, but “try to eat them within a week.” Just One Cookbook says eat home-cured ikura within a few days — “Although ikura is processed, it’s still raw seafood.” Go with the shorter figure. It freezes for about a month.
Parasites The FDA Food Code requires most fish served raw to be frozen first, but exempts “fish eggs that have been removed from the skein and rinsed.” Roe eaten raw in the skein is not covered by that exemption.
The law In Michigan it is unlawful to buy or sell fish or parts of fish taken under a sport fishing licence, so home-cured roe from sport-caught fish may be eaten or given away but not sold.
Michigan fish eggs — read this Michigan’s Eat Safe Fish guides test fillets only, and say: “The organs and head are not tested for the ESF Guide. Internal organs (liver, fish eggs, etc.) typically have higher levels of chemicals than the filet and shouldn’t be eaten.” PCBs and dioxins are stored in fat and organs. The guide publishes no measurements for roe, so this is a precaution rather than a finding about any particular lake, and it applies to panfish, salmon and steelhead roe alike.
Never eat gar roe Gar eggs contain a toxin that cooking does not destroy; even cooked gar roe causes severe illness. Longnose gar live in Michigan waters.
The Offal dive on the Food site covers this part in depth.
The photo The photo shows cured salmon roe (ikura) in Hokkaido.