Fish Roe Salad | You've Got Meal!

This has to be one of the best and easiest to make appetizers out there, but it can have an acquired taste for some people – you are eating raw fish eggs in the end. There are a lot of possibilities from which to choose when deciding what type of fish’s roe to use, and for the recipe we went for pike. In my book, pike roe is in the top half, alongside trout roe. I like the fact that it has a medium granulation and the texture is a lot smoother than other types of roe that you could use for salad, like carp or hering. I’m pretty sure this is a well known fact, but the roe you use in salads are not the fresh ones, they are preserved with salt and plenty of it, so keep that in mind.  

Ingredients: 

• 50 grams of pike roe, 
• vegetable oil (make sure you use a bland oil, without a very strong flavor), 
• lemon juice, 
• a small onion, 
• soaked bread (optional). 

Making the salad is a very similar process to the way you make mayo, it’s about adding periodically small amounts of oil and incorporating it into the roe. You can either use a fork and work out in the kitchen using your hands to mix the salad, or plug in the hand mixer on a low speed, it’s up to you. 

For about 50 grams of the roe we used about 100 rams of sunflower oil. We like to start by just mixing the roe without any other ingredients, in order to break some of the eggs, but not all of them -  they give a nice, pearled look to the dish. The amount of lemon juice you add is up to you, same as the moment you add it to the salad (we do that at the end).

The idea behind the use of the soaked bread is to create volume and to cheat about the amount of salad you make. You need to soak the bread in water, drain really well and incorporate it in the salad so there aren’t any lumps (don’t use crust for this). Finely slice the onion and incorporate it in the salad. You can choose to grate it if you’re not going for the crunch factor, but make sure you drain the onion really well then.

So that’s it, easy fish roe salad. For me, this always reminds me of 2 things:  Mrs. G.'s mother, who makes some great hering roe salad, and the taverns in Greece, that served this as antipasti alongside some Retsina wine. So, what about you guys, any thoughts about the dish or recipe?

Enjoy,