Blue caviar!

[Blacktail135]

 Dishing up some black capelin caviar for dinner and it’s BLUE! Would you eat it? No pull date or best by date.

[Blacktail135]

 I ate some! Great crunch and flavor! If I miss the duck opener this weekend with my oldest granddaughter (who is extremely excited about it).....it’ll be my own fault. Tasted good but, whew, butt ugly stuff! Should be enough salt in it to be OK. FYI the jar was sealed.

[Blacktail135]

 Stuffed delicata squash (rice,ground elk,broccoli, carrots, onions, etc.), sliced cucumbers, avocado tortilla chips, beet colored pickled quail eggs, Bavarian sauerkraut and blue Capelin caviar. Wife wants to shoot me........dead. 😂. Everything was tasty except the delicata squash was DRY. Next year we’ll stick with acorn squash. 😂

[pianoman9701]

They use food coloring, not sure why. What more concerns me is how they stabilize and preserve. I've not been able to find any information on tragachante (stabilizer) and sodium benzoate isn't good for you. Top shelf caviar should have nothing but salt and (sometimes) flavors, and a fairly short shelf-life of around 90 days. It's fairly simple to make and with modern production, pasteurization is the preservative.

Many of the cheap caviars, like the ones you buy off the shelves at Freddy's, use Borax as a preservative, and you can taste it. Be careful buying locally-made steelhead, king roe, or Ikura (usually chum roe, sometimes coho), unless you trust the source for both the ethics in harvesting the roe and manufacturing methods.

[Encore 280]

Back in the 60's in Astoria I helped my uncle with processing sturgeon caviar. The only way he made it was to brine in a salt brine then take it out and put it on fine screens and remove the gray eggs. Let it firm up then put it in jars with a putty knife. Every once in awhile I'd sneak a dip, gawd that stuff was good! Family get togethers my aunt would cut hard boiled eggs in half and remove the yolk then fill the white with caviar. Oh jeeze that stuff was to die for! I think we put it in 1lb. jars and he shipped it to New York. Seems like it was going for $22 an ounce at the time. Aaah the good ol days.

[pianoman9701]

I think that selling non-farmed sturgeon caviar in the US is now illegal. Those were the days! There are some really great farmed sturgeon caviars now available. As well, paddlefish caviar is very good.

The last company I worked for made domestic caviars and also sold Russian sturgeon caviar made from a farm in Moldova. I almost preferred the steelhead...almost. There's nothing like good oscietra or beluga/sterlet hybrid caviar that has only salt added. But the steelie had such great "pop". We also had golden char (lake trout, which is actually a breed of char, not trout) caviar - much smaller eggs with less pop but a really soft and buttery flavor. I doesn't suck when your boss allows you to mix Russian caviar and white Italian truffles in with your scrambled eggs.

[762Armo]

I've made caviar from salmon I've caught. Mostly pinks, which were ok... King Roe produced a really nice product.
I've tried, but haven't caught a sturgeon yet, would love to cure my own Sturgeon Caviar, if anyone helps me get a keeper sturgeon, I'll share the caviar  .
Anyway, can't help you with your blue caviar, it's always been black when I've bought it. We'll know what happened if this thread doesn't get updated.

[762Armo]

I think that selling non-farmed sturgeon caviar in the US is now illegal. Those were the days! There are some really great farmed sturgeon caviars now available. As well, paddlefish caviar is very good.

The last company I worked for made domestic caviars and also sold Russian sturgeon caviar made from a farm in Moldova. I almost preferred the steelhead...almost. There's nothing like good oscietra or beluga/sterlet hybrid caviar that has only salt added. But the steelie had such great "pop". We also had golden char (lake trout, which is actually a breed of char, not trout) caviar - much smaller eggs with less pop but a really soft and buttery flavor. I doesn't suck when your boss allows you to mix Russian caviar and white Italian truffles in with your scrambled eggs.

Sounds like a nice benefit.

[Encore 280]

I don't think you'll get any caviar from a keeper white sturgeon. I don't think they get eggs until they're around 6'. My uncle would get them from the big 6' plus ones that the gillnetters would get. I remember seeing some huge sturgeon laying on the cannery floor. The skeins were huge, 3-4' long with a b'gillion eggs!

[Blacktail135]

 I’m still kicking! Wife didn’t care for my dinner prep last night. Darn. Guess she’s gonna take over that for a while....again! 😂 Thanks guy’s for some schooling on caviar. I like caviar occasionally but know nothing about it. Blue caviar did seem a bit weird though, especially since when it was fresh(er) (the last jar) it was black. It did taste good and had good crunch but I think I’ll toss it to the night critters.

[pianoman9701]

I think that selling non-farmed sturgeon caviar in the US is now illegal. Those were the days! There are some really great farmed sturgeon caviars now available. As well, paddlefish caviar is very good.

The last company I worked for made domestic caviars and also sold Russian sturgeon caviar made from a farm in Moldova. I almost preferred the steelhead...almost. There's nothing like good oscietra or beluga/sterlet hybrid caviar that has only salt added. But the steelie had such great "pop". We also had golden char (lake trout, which is actually a breed of char, not trout) caviar - much smaller eggs with less pop but a really soft and buttery flavor. I doesn't suck when your boss allows you to mix Russian caviar and white Italian truffles in with your scrambled eggs.

Yes it was. The company was a victim of shutting down the state. Gone.

Sounds like a nice benefit.

[ctwiggs1]

How do you "make" caviar?  Just pull the eggs, throw some salt on the roe and eat up?

[pianoman9701]

How do you "make" caviar?  Just pull the eggs, throw some salt on the roe and eat up?

First, you have to run the skeins over a screen big enough to allow the eggs to drop through. Once you've separated the egs, you rinse them, drain them, and add a salt slurry - some keep them in salt (refrigerated, of course) for up to 24 hours. Then you drain them again and package for consumption or freezing. If you are freezing in jars or tins, you must leave a little space for expansion. Also, during the salting process, flavor can be added - maple syrup, liquid smoke, sake, whiskey, etc.

[ctwiggs1]

How do you "make" caviar?  Just pull the eggs, throw some salt on the roe and eat up?

First, you have to run the skeins over a screen big enough to allow the eggs to drop through. Once you've separated the egs, you rinse them, drain them, and add a salt slurry - some keep them in salt (refrigerated, of course) for up to 24 hours. Then you drain them again and package for consumption or freezing. If you are freezing in jars or tins, you must leave a little space for expansion. Also, during the salting process, flavor can be added - maple syrup, liquid smoke, sake, whiskey, etc.

Seems like a "kids are out of the house" kind of project

[pianoman9701]

How do you "make" caviar?  Just pull the eggs, throw some salt on the roe and eat up?

First, you have to run the skeins over a screen big enough to allow the eggs to drop through. Once you've separated the egs, you rinse them, drain them, and add a salt slurry - some keep them in salt (refrigerated, of course) for up to 24 hours. Then you drain them again and package for consumption or freezing. If you are freezing in jars or tins, you must leave a little space for expansion. Also, during the salting process, flavor can be added - maple syrup, liquid smoke, sake, whiskey, etc.

Seems like a "kids are out of the house" kind of project

Teach your kids and you can just sit back and wait for the finished product!