Marinating Fresh Salmon Roe (Ikura)

We picked up fresh sockeye salmon from a native friend (they know their fresh fish!) for a good price (check out this post about gutting), but the price we also had to pay was to prepare and gut it ourselves.  Hubs managed to figure out how to clean and gut the fish.  Our fish had a belly full of eggs which would be a pity if it was tossed.  So I found online a couple of recipes on marinating salmon roe and incorporated the recipes based on my taste preference and what’s available in the kitchen.

Salmon belly full of eggy goodness.  Luckily there’s a thin membrane that holds it together so that your face is not sprayed with flying roe when you slice the fish open.   Gently take it out and place it in a bowl.  It’s like a sausage, eggs in a casing.  The eggs don’t feel as delicate as it looks when it’s all packed together.

Soak in hot water (not boiling) for a few minutes and then gently break the membrane apart.  Handle the eggs gently in the now-warm water.  Most of the loose membrane pieces will float to the top.  Keep changing water until it is clear of non-roe bits.  This may take at least 5 water changes.  You can also tilt the bowl under running water so you are flushing out the bits in one continuous stream but this takes a bit of skill in handling to avoid losing your eggs.

Once I drained the clear water, I split the eggs into 2 bowls.  I found recipes on curing it in salt and one with soy sauce. The roe will turn a clear colour as it reacts to the salt.

Salt – use non-iodized salt like sea salt or kosher salt.  I used kosher salt because I only have flavoured sea salt.  This turned out to be really salty but I was still able to taste the freshness of the eggs.  Good for mixing with rice.

Soy flavoured – 3 parts soy sauce, 2 parts sake, 1 part mirin.  Turned out perfect, it wasn’t too salty that I was able to snack on these on its own.   I ended up mixing these ones with the salted roe on rice.

Some recipes say you can keep up to 5 days, but I think you should eat it within 3 days.  On day 2, the eggs will look noticeably smaller and you will lose some from popped ones (how you can tell is if you run it under water, the popped eggs residue turns the water into a milky white colour.