What is Fish Roe?

kelolalaut.com - Roe or fish roe is the fully ripe internal egg masses in the ovaries of a fish, it can also refer to external egg masses from fish or other marine animals like shrimp, scallop, sea urchins and squid. As a seafood, fish roe is used both as a cooked ingredient in a lot of dishes and a raw ingredient for delicacies like caviar.

The most famous and prized roes is the roe of sturgeon, from which caviar is made. In the preparation of caviar, the egg masses from freshly caught fish are removed and passed through a fine-mesh screen. This action makes the eggs separated and cleared from extraneous pieces of tissue.

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Roe can perish unusually quickly, even when compared to other forms of seafood. So try to buy it only from most reliable fishmongers or harvest it from fresh caught fish. The outside of the roe sacs will usually cover with blood and other detritus, so it needs to be clean right away. Rinse them under cold running water, then left them to dry in colander for a few minutes.

At this point, the fish roe can be cooked whole, inside their membrane you can also carefully silt the sacs and turn the eggs out into a clean bowl. If necessary, scrape them free from the membrane gently with a spoon or the back of the knife.

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The most common way to cook fish roe is to pan-fried or poached them. Cooked roe makes an additional rich and flavourful taste to you sauces for fish or pasta. Alternatively you can mash the poached roes and combine them with artisan mustard, fresh herbs, garlic and olive oil. That kind of mixture is usually used as spread on canapes or in Greek dishes.

You can also turn any fresh roe into your own homemade ‘caviar’. It is a simple step by soaking the loose eggs in brine for 20 to 30 minutes, then drain it and keep it in refrigerator. The cured eggs can be eaten the traditional way, from spoon, or used as a garnish on canapes, pasta, fish dishes or sushi.

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