Salted fish roe recipe (bottarga)

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  • Cuisine: Italian

Bottarga is salted, cured fish roe, originating from Sardinia and Sicily, that’s traditionally sliced, grated or sprinkled on seafood pasta dishes. Make sure your roe are as fresh as possible and not damaged in any way.

Ingredients

Whole fish roe or egg sacks (small eggs are best)
Salt
Olive oil
Butchers’ twine

Preparation

Soak the roe overnight in a saltwater solution (10g salt per 1 litre of water).

Remove from the solution and pat dry on paper towels.

Lay out fresh paper towel on a tray and liberally sprinkle with salt. Place the roe on top and cover with more salt. Place this in the fridge.

Replace the paper towels daily. Add more salt.

After 3 or 4 days the roes will have firmed up. Use a skewer to poke a hole in each roe and tie butchers' twine in a long loop. Hang the roe in a cool dry place for 10- 14 days (or longer, if desired).

Remove the roe from its hanging place, brush with a little olive oil, wrap and refrigerate.

Bottarga is best served freshly sliced or grated onto pasta.

If you enjoyed this Salted fish roe recipe (bottarga) then browse more Italian recipes, seafood recipes, prepare ingredients in advance recipes and our most popular hainanese chicken rice recipe.

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Comments (2)

   
29 Feb 2012 12:30 AEST
Claire
Re: "While the recipe is good it is really silly to say 'Make sure your roe are as fresh as possible and not damaged in any way' " Actually not all that silly, when preserving anything especially meat and fish it is essential to use the best raw product you can. If the raw roe is damaged it is a waste of time and if it is not fresh it will likely rot or become unsafe before preservation is complete. Sure the point is to preserve it but you need to start with as fresh as possible
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22 Sep 2011 08:38 AEST
Verity James
While the recipe is good it is really silly to say 'Make sure your roe are as fresh as possible and not damaged in any way' when it is a salted and cured fish! It is about as far from 'fresh' as it can be!
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