A salmon egg. Like the chicken egg, the inner
yolk is surrounded by a protein-rich fluid, and
contains fatty materials, including fat-soluble
carotenoid pigments, and the living egg cell.
Salt Transforms Egg Flavor
and Texture
Heavy Salting: Bottarga Fish eggs are more
frequently consumed salted than they are
fresh. Originally, salting was simply a means
of preserving the eggs. For millennia in the
Mediterranean, whole mullet and tuna ovaries
have been dry-salted, pressed, and dried to
make what’s now best known as bottarga
(there are almost identical Asian versions).
The salting and drying cause a concentration
of amino acids, fatty materials, and sugars,