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Salmon Roe, Fried
Boil the hard roe of a salmon. When done enough, draw it on a sieve, and let it remain until cold. Cut it into thin slices, dip these in egg and bread-crumbs, and fry them in hot fat till they are lightly and equally browned all over. Garnish with parsley, and serve with tartar sauce.
A short Victorian treatment of an ingredient that has largely dropped out of British cooking. The whole thing hinges on cooking the roe skein through, then chilling it hard before you attempt to slice it.
- What "hard roe" meansHard roe is the intact egg sac (skein) from a female fish; soft roe is the milt from a male. Only the hard roe holds together well enough to be sliced and fried. Salmon skeins are sold seasonally by fishmongers and are worth ordering ahead rather than hoping to find one.
- Handle the skein gentlyRinse it, leave the membrane on, and poach rather than hard-boil: a bare simmer in salted water or court bouillon, about 10 to 15 minutes depending on thickness. A rolling boil bursts the membrane and the eggs scatter.
- "Draw it on a sieve"This simply means lift it out and let it drain in the sieve. Do not press or refresh it under cold water; the point is to let steam escape so the roe firms as it cools.
- Cold is not optionalWarm roe crumbles the moment a knife touches it. Chill it thoroughly, several hours or overnight, and cut slices about 1 cm thick. The original's "thin slices" can be taken as a suggestion rather than a rule.
- BreadingFlour, then beaten egg, then fine dry crumbs. A period cook would have used a stale loaf grated; panko works and gives a crisper coat. Let the crumbed slices sit 15 minutes so the coating sets.
- Frying temperatureThe original specifies only "hot fat"; by modern practice that would be roughly 350 to 375F. Below that the crumbs absorb fat and the slices go soggy; the interior is already cooked, so you are only browning the crust, two to three minutes total.
- YieldThe number of slices depends entirely on the size of the skein; the original gives no quantity. Serve immediately with the tartar sauce; roe fritters lose their crispness quickly.
Fried roe belongs to the thrifty end of Victorian fish cookery, in which nothing that came out of a fish was wasted. British cooks of the period did the same with herring and cod roe, poached, sliced and fried, or served on toast for breakfast and supper. The distinction between hard roe and soft roe (milt) was everyday vocabulary then and has since become specialist knowledge. The taste for salted, cured salmon eggs served raw as caviar-style ikura, which is how many people now encounter the ingredient, came later to British and American tables; here the roe is straightforwardly cooked, crumbed and treated as a small fried dish, with tartar sauce standing in for the sharp, capered accompaniment that fried fish traditionally demanded.