Recipe for cod roe salad
The Danish cod population is on the brink of collapse. The Danish Society for Nature Conservation writes in their newsletter:
“The cod stock in the inner Danish waters is in such bad shape that recreational fishers this year have only been allowed to catch one cod per day. At the same time, commercial fishers are only allowed to catch cod as very limited bycatch, while both recreational and commercial cod fishing has been closed during the cod’s spawning period.”
This is due to several factors. In the Øresund, where trawl fishing is prohibited, there is actually a recovery in the northern part, but this is not the case further south and into the Baltic Sea, where overfishing, oxygen depletion, and lack of saltwater exchange are among the known reasons. In the Kattegat, cod is also threatened by an excessive seal population, which is also the cause of intestinal worms in large parts of the cod stock.
Fortunately, the Norwegian cod population is sustainable, and it is therefore responsible to enjoy cod roe imported from Lofoten, where there is a large stock of skrei—Arctic cod.
Every winter, hundreds of fishing boats gather on the wind-blown Vestfjord, between Lofoten and Bodø on the northern Norwegian mainland. They fish for skrei—Arctic cod that each year makes the journey from the Barents Sea to the coast off northern Norway to spawn. This large type of cod is particularly found in the waters off Lofoten, Senja, and Vesterålen between January and April, according to “Visit Norway”.
Due to a drier climate, the fish from here does not need to be salted like stockfish. Instead, a portion of the cod catch is often dried on outdoor wooden racks and sold on the European market at higher prices than stockfish. During the season, fresh skrei is also sold to Europe.
So I got hold of a box with 3 kg of Norwegian cod roe from the skrei species at a price lower than fresh skrei, which I also got—more on that in another article. I placed the roe in two sous vide bags, left them open, and put them in a pot with a sous vide stick. By leaving the bags open with the opening above the pot’s edge, the air could be displaced in the pot of water without crushing the roe. They had 1.5 hours at 85°C, were cut up, wrapped in film, and placed in sous vide bags in the freezer. Now I have fresh cod roe for a long time. I saved the bouillon the roe had left in the sous vide bags to make cod roe salad and sauce.
There are many recipes for cod roe salad. The classic one from Det Store Danske Madleksikon is mashed cod roe mixed with mayonnaise/sour cream (38%) added with shallots, capers, a bit of sweet chili sauce, and seasoned with lemon, salt, and pepper. In a Greek version from the same lexicon, olive oil and garlic are used.
I like it in my own Nordic version with ramsons and pickled seaweed, which I just gathered in the forest (ramsons are out in March) and at the coast north of Rørvig, where there is seaweed and bladderwrack in shallow water (I am a winter swimmer ☺).
Cod Roe Salad
Ingredients
- 200 gram Cod Roe boiled
- 30 gram Saw Pliers pickled
- 30 gram Wild Garlic leaves
- 10 cm leek the white part
- 75 gram Mayonnaise or crème fraîche
- 5 gram Coarse mustard
- Broth A bit of the broth from sous vide
- Lemon
- Salt and Pepper
- Hemp Crunch
- 1 slices Rye Bread homemade
Instructions
- The roe is cut into small cubes
- Savory seaweed, ramsons leaves, and leeks are cut into small squares
- Mix together with mayonnaise/crème fraîche
- Season to taste with broth, lemon, salt, and pepper
- Crunch is made of toasted hemp seeds, dried and powdered bladderwrack, nutritional yeast flakes, and a bit of sea salt, which are toasted with a bit of olive oil in a pan before drying on a sheet of kitchen paper.
- Serve on rye bread