Posts Tagged ‘Roe’
Caviar Costs 2012
Image by fore via Flickr
The caviar costs 2012 are going up according to the lasted projections. This is due to the continuing shortage of available caviar and the ever increasing demand for this delectable morsel. The demand for Caspian Sea Caviar has always been great and is the reason for the limitations on what can be harvested. Since the consumers of caviar are the more affluent of the consumers, their desire to enjoy caviar when and where they desire is on the increase.
Because of this the cost of nearly all types of caviar are on the rise. This includes the farmed caviar being produced in both Europe and America. It is true that the breeding stock of these fish farms is from the Caspian Sea, but most connoisseurs claim they can taste the difference. The claim is that it has a muddy taste but this varies from person to person. It does not matter if it is true or not, just the assumption that is does is enough to turn the true connoisseurs off and make them look for their roe in another location.
The fish farms have a bad reputation since what occurred with raising salmon a few years back. The pins were overcrowded and the water was not a clean as it should have been. This reputation has been unjustly transferred to the surgeon farms. The level of quality and areas in which these sturgeons are being raised have dramatically increased in the last decade because of the sharp decline in the wild sturgeon population in the Caspian Sea. The taste has improved.
For those of you willing to pay the high price of Caspian Sea caviar, you cannot stock up on this as with other staples to consumer at a later date. Salt is used to help preserve the roe, but it must be enjoyed within 6 months of being placed in the tins for it to keep its full flavor and delicacy. This roe can also not be frozen for any reason because it will change the nature of the roe and how it will taste.
At this time at the end of 2011, Black Russian Caspian Beluga Caviar can still be purchased for just over $25 an ounce. Unfortunately this is for only medium sized roe. The large black roe is considerable more expensive because of the extremely high demand for this product.
The caviar costs 2012 are not headed down, but up for those that enjoy this delicacy, it is still not too expensive for those of you who have the desire to taste this rare treat.
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No CommentsFoods that Pair Well with Caviar
The numbers of foods that pair well with caviar are numerous. While no one ever wishes to present a hors d’oeurve that will overpower the wonderful taste of caviar, many do add a complimentary flavor to what you can offer your guests.
This topic of pairing the right food with caviar has become of great concerns since the banning of beluga caviar in the mid 2000’s. This was done in the hope that this ancient species of fish my not become extinct. Before this time it was almost considered a sin to pair any type of food with Caspian Sea beluga caviar because of it unique taste.
Today there are numerous types of caviar on the open market. While there is still some beluga caviar that can be found, more and more people have ventured into the realm of enjoying other species of roe at their dinner parties.
One of the most often paired food items that are used in the serving of caviar other than those from the Caspian Sea is cream cheese. This adds alight texture to any roe. In addition when hard crackers are used to serve the roe, the cream cheese provides a soft place for it to be placed on the cracker. This way few to none of the roe become broken when a person is serving themselves this hors d’oeurve.
Another combination that is not well known is the pairing of white chocolate and caviar. These two types of food complement each other because of similarities in some of the chemical molecules that are present in both. This is several amines which allow this pairing to be mutual agreeable by most.
The use of quail and chicken eggs served as devil eggs is another very popular and inviting way to serve caviar to your guest. The roe should be placed on the yoke of the egg for the greatest appeal to the eye.
Some traditionalist believe onions, lemon and capers are excellent garnishments for caviar. Unfortunately this has a tendency to mask the true flavor of the caviar. This is especially true with the farmed caviar now being sold on the open market. Because the fish are not stressed by living in the wild, the flavor is milder.
As an alternative you may wish to top this caviar with lightly toasted brioche with a high quality butter or blini. These are great foods that pair well with caviar, but with each option, the choice is a personal one.
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No CommentsAmerican Sturgeon Provide Choices
Image via Wikipedia
The American sturgeon has been around since the days of the dinosaurs. They have flourished in the lakes and streams of this great nation since before it was a nation but were almost hunted down to extinction just over a 100 years ago.
There were so many sturgeons in the rivers that catching them and harvesting the roe was done with a matter of ease. In the early saloons at the turn of the 19th century, American caviar was given away for free. Today this is no longer done and pretzels have replaced them. This is how plentiful the supply was of this ancient species of fish.
Today there are still numerous sturgeons in the waters of America, but many of them are on the endangered species list like the American Pallid. This is a cousin to the sturgeons species and was harvested for it roe just as it cousins are.
The two most popular American sturgeons on the market today are the American Lake sturgeons and the American Hackleback sturgeons. Unlike their cousins in the Caspian Sea, both of these species of sturgeons live their entire lives in fresh water.
Another type is the American Hackleback sturgeons which live mostly in the rivers and streams of the Midwest. They are one of the smallest sturgeons in the world reaching only about a yard long. Their roe is dark like the Beluga cousin but is smaller. The flavor is said to be sweet buttery and nutty.
The American Lake sturgeons are much larger than the Hackleback, but spawn less frequently. They only produce roe every 5 to 7 years on average. In their 100 year life span they can reach up to 3 yards long or more and weigh up to 400 pounds. When they span almost 25% of their weight will be the roe they have produced. This is the caviar that is so highly prized of the 20 different species of sturgeons in the American waters. The reason being is it closely resembles that of the Beluga roe from the Caspian Sea.
Historically the American Lake Sturgeons used to heavily populate the Great lakes, but their numbers have significantly diminished. The limit per catch is only 5 per fisherman and it must be at least 3 feet long to be legal.
The American Sturgeons are a great alternative to those cousins in the Caspian Sea; unfortunately, their numbers are not high due to the same overfishing of the species as what occurred in the Caspian Sea.
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No Comments6 Types of Caspian Sea Caviar
Caspian Sea Caviar
The Caspian Sea caviar is the most sought after delicacy in the world. This has been how it has been for over a millennium. Unfortunately due to over over harvesting of the roe from all of the sturgeon species of fish, the main source of the rare delicacy is nearing extinction.
Image by Mykal Shaw via Flickr
There are 6 different species of sturgeon that live in the Caspian Sea. Of these there are three which are targeted for their roe in which has supplied the caviar for hundreds of years. The most sought after is the beluga sturgeon.
Fortunately the beluga is the largest of these ancient fish which can live up to and past 100 years. They can grow to over 4 meters in length in that time and amass a weight of over 1000 kg. This sturgeon, like all the other species in the Caspian Sea live their lives in the salt water of the sea but return to the rivers and streams that feed the sea when it comes time to spawn.
The beluga sturgeon will lay on average up to 15% of its own body mass in eggs each spawning season. This spawning only occurs every three years, but unlike the salmon that spawn and die, the beluga and all the others go back to the sea and live on.
The Ossetra sturgeon produces the second most prized type of roe in this ancient fish family. They can reach a weight up to 180 kg and reach almost 2 meters in length. Because they are a smaller species, the amount of roe obtain per fish is smaller. The maximum life expectancy of the Ossetra is only 50 years.
The smallest of the prized sturgeons is the Sevruga. This one might reach 1.5 meters in length and weigh up to 25 kg. They also produce the smallest roe of all the Caspian Sea caviar and only live up to 30 years.
One of the reasons this delicacy was discovered by man so long ago was all of the sturgeon species spawn on the flooded riverbanks in strong current fresh water streams and rivers. This has made them easy to see and catch at a time they are extremely vulnerable.
Because the preferred streams are fast flowing, the roe has to be captured before it leaves the mother which is why this fish’s demise has occurred.
The Caspian Sea caviar comes from ancient fish that are listed on the endangered list with beluga at the greatest risk. Steps have been taken to ensure their survival, but this does not necessarily mean in the wild.
wildsingapore news: Caviar back on the menu – in an ethical way
Once the preserve of Russian tsars and British royalty, caviar was described by the great Renaissance writer François Rabelais as the finest titbit in the world. But recently it has been disappearing from dinner menus, amid …
Publish Date: 11/26/2011 19:00
http://wildsingaporenews.blogspot.com/2011/11/caviar-back-on-menu-in-ethical-way.html
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No CommentsHaving a Caviar Party
If holding a Caviar Party is in your near future, you then know this will entail more than just supplying caviar to your guest. Not only do you need to consider what type of caviar to serve along with its quality, but what you arte going to serve the caviar on. Both plain crackers and small toast is acceptable.
For many there will be other types of hors d’oeurves being offered to the guests. Many hosts are now offering lower quality caviar mixed with cream cheese or butter in an attempt to enhance its flavor. The hands down favorite is smoked salmon. This is a delicacy that can complement the serving of caviar if it is done correctly.
Because of the difference in flavor between caviar and smoked salmon, there has to be a break in the consumption of these two appetizers. This can be done by simply having plain crackers or toast available to help absorb the flavors of the hors d’oeurves ion the serving trays.
As a joke, some hosts now place a bowl of Texas Caviar out. This is a appetizer that contains bean, corn and peppers mostly. There is absolutely no roe present in this dish yet it is still called caviar because of its appearance that resembles that fish eggs are present.
At every caviar party, there must be the appropriate drinks present for the guest to enjoy the evening. The most common drink to serve is champagne or sparkling wine. This compliments any caviar it is served with. Unfortunately it can have a flavor that might overpower the caviar you are serving.
To prevent this from occurring for your guests that have a very sensitive sense of taste and smell, the offering of a premium vodka or purified water is suggested. Both of these have no flavor to them and why they are recommended. Most hostesses also have coffee and tea, but most guests avoid drinking them until they are done enjoying the caviar that is being served.
With all of these considerations to contemplate, many forget about the type of caviar they are planning on serving. Beluga is the most popular, but its rarity some time places it out of reach for most that have a limited budget. The American farmed beluga is a viable alternative for many.
The ancestral lines of the sturgeons whose roe is being harvested in the American fish farms are from the Caspian Sea. The genes are the same, but the composition of the water the fish are raised in is different along with the salt that is used on the roe after the harvest.
As you can see holding a caviar party is much more than just opening a tin of your favorite roe and placing it on ice.
Where to have gourmet food in New York City. Check out the Caviar too.
Official Opening Of Upper East Side Deli
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No CommentsHow to Serve Caviar
By knowing how to serve caviar in the appropriate manner can make a significant contribution to just how much you and your guest will enjoy this rare delicacy. This is really a very simple process if you take the proper precautions to enjoy maximum enjoyment.
The very first thing that a host or hostess will learn is that the caviar is to be served in the container that it was packaged in. This is generally a tin, but some caviar produced in America does come in a glass jar. No matter what the container is, the roe should remain in it until the person about to enjoy this delicacy removes it with a mother of pearl spoon or other appropriate utensil.
The temperature of the caviar is also a vital component of extracting the maximum enjoyment of eating caviar. The caviar should remain in the refrigerator until about 15 minutes before it will be enjoyed. This way it can still be below 36F when the first person takes a spoon full. The temperature of the refrigerator must also be maintained between 29F to 36F. At the lower end, the caviar is at a slight risk of becoming frozen. This should be avoided in all cases so the roe does not become damaged.
When it is time to enjoy the caviar the lid should be removed. If it is removed too soon before the guests begin to take a sample, the maximum flavor of the roe will have already started to escape. The temperature will also have begun to increase.
To help the tin of caviar to maintain its low temperature while it is being served, it has to be placed in a container with crushed ice. While cubed ice will last longer, the crushed ice will have more contact area in touch with the tin to help maintain this temperature for a more consistent effect.
To help your guest enjoy the caviar the most, the use of fresh baked bread that is lightly toasted is best. This will have a delicate texture and not allow the roe to break when the caviar is applied to it.
The caviar should also be served as is, with no garnish or additions. The biggest mistake is that some people think cream cheese, lemon juice or salt needs to be added to the caviar for it to be enjoyed. This is only true of the caviar is of an inferior quality.
To help wash down this hors d’oeurves the serving of a high quality chilled vodka or champagne is recommended.
This is how to serve caviar for you and your guest. The secret is to have the roe arrive in the mouth of your guest unbroken for maximum enjoyment.
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No CommentsNonsurgical Live Removal of Caviar
The need for nonsurgical live removal of caviar from the host mother is one of the best ways to help sustain the sturgeon’s population to a level where it can be removed from the endangered species list. This technique is called stripping the roe from its mother.
The reason stripping is now the preferred method for the removal of the roe for human consumption is that the sturgeon then lives on and can produce another batch of eggs. Unfortunately most species of sturgeon only go thru the reproductive cycle once every three years. This is considerable better than the 20 years required for a sturgeon to be hatched then grow to maturity before it can start to produce roe of its own.
The old way of extracting the roe from the female sturgeons was to slice the belly of the fish open and remove the ovaries that contained the unfertilized eggs. There were some fisheries that were stitching up the females after the ovaries were removed so the fish could live on, but with no ovaries to produce the desired caviar, the fish had no more use for the caviar industry or able to reproduce to help keep the population from collapsing.
The process of stripping itself came from the salmon fisheries. There they used to strip the roe and sperm from adults so a new generation of salmon could be raised. To perform this procedure the sturgeon is generally anesthetized. This allows for less harm to come to the roe and the mother.
This procedure is done by hand where a person takes the fish by the tail with one hand. The other hand then applies pressure to the ovaries externally so the roe can flow out. This is then collected and inspected. Because each fish is different and the quality of its roe will vary, each collection process is done in separate containers so the higher quality caviar can early be separated from the lower grade ones.
This practice of stripping has been performed by the fisheries in Iran for some time now. It is also the reason the Iranian Caviar was not banned for human consumption when all other counties were by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species in 2005. The reason for the ban in America was purely a political one that most agree with.
The use of nonsurgical live removal of caviar still allows for the harvesting of this delicacy without endangering the lives of the sturgeons that product them. As long as some of the roe are allowed to hatch, the population of all sturgeon species can be maintained and grow so a sustained supply of caviar can exist in the future for human consumption and enjoyment.
South Korea Emerges as Unlikely Source of Caviar
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No CommentsNeed Caviar Recipes
A few Caviar Recipes
There are many caviar recipes being used at events and social occasions around the world. The most often and enjoyable of all the caviar recipes is the applying of caviar to a piece of lightly toasted bread that is freshly baked.
The reason this is the preferred recipe is because the toast is still soft enough not to crush the roe when it is being placed on its surface and the true flavor of caviar is allow to step forward. This is the main reason crackers are not the choice of serving mediums for this wonderful delicacy.
This is the recipe used most often for those that have acquired a high quality caviar, usually from the Caspian Sea. For those that love caviar, this is the only way to enjoy the full flavor of the roe.
Because of the embargo on the trade of Caspian Sea caviar in the 2000’s, the need for an alternative source of this delicacy needed to be filled. This is also the reason so many recipes involving caviar have spawned up lately. The flavor is not the same as what was coming from the Caspian Sea so a change in the way the alternative roe was being served has changed.
One recipe that combines two loved flavors is lobster tail and caviar. By lightly frying bread in oil that also has a chicken stock cube dissolved in it then draining the excess oil off, you have a great base for your Hors d’oeurves. When cooled, a piece of thinly sliced lobster tail is added and topped with your choice of Caviar. The most common caviar for this recipe because of the nutty taste is Sevruga.
Another commonly used item for the serving of caviar is cream cheese. This is done since the cream cheese does not have an overpowering flavor and the taste of the caviar will be noticed. This combination can be served on toast or crackers. For a change of pace the use of prepared potato skins is a welcome addition. The sprinkling of salt and pepper to taste is common along with a few pieces of finely chopped shallots.
The combination of two completely different unfertilized eggs is also becoming popular. The boiling of quail eggs then pealing them is the first step. After they are shelled then they should be cut in half lengthwise. On the yoke of this egg should be placed the caviar. This is great for any type of caviar, but most often used with salmon roe.
Order Caviar online by clicking on the right.
The way you prefer this delicacy is a personal one, but these ideas many be useful. These are a few simple and enjoyable caviar recipes.
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No CommentsMore on The Current Caviar Price
Caviar Price
The caviar price has changed over the years. Caviar started out as a food source for the people around the Caspian Sea. Once the royalty of Russia took notice of this delicacy, their desire to enjoy this rare food morsel from the sea took over and most of the common people no longer consumed any.
Now we move on to the early 1900’s and America was a vast new source of caviar which was found in the streams and rivers of this vast continent. The supply of caviar was so plentiful that it replaced the beer nuts in bars as free giveaway food. The quality of the caviar was so high that when it was exported to Europe some of it returned repackaged as Russian caviar. This did cause some confusion and in the later parts of the 1900’s, only roe from the beluga, ossetra and sevruga species caught in the Caspian Sea can be labeled as caviar as a result.
Caviar Price by Supply
Today there are caviar suppliers around the world. The label on the can now has to specific it origin. If the name caviar is alone then it is the highest quality Beluga sturgeon roe that originates in the Caspian Sea.
The price of this ancient delicacy has risen in the last couple of decades due to overfishing of the sturgeon in the wild. Because of this a ½ kilogram of Russian beluga caviar will now cost in the range of $2,500 to $3,000. This can still be purchased in bulk from several different suppliers.
Caviar Price by Demand
There is less of a demand for the small but stronger tasting Russian Sevruga. A 2 ounce tin of this roe ranges from $230 to $270. This is also what many suppliers give away to their customers who place large orders. This is generally the restaurants around the world.
The Russian Ossetra Caviar is where the imperial Russian caviar is from. Only 5% of all this roe can meet that high standard. You can find this in a larger 4.5 ounce tin in the price range from $475 to $650.
There are other sources of caviar, but the label on the tin will announce where it is from. The Caviar can be purchased in a 5 ounce can for as little as $120. Salmon Caviar is even less expensive because of the abundant supply and a 5 ounce can is only $20.
The varieties of caviar around the world are many including the really low costing roe of Scandinavia which is from the cod fish. The caviar price you will pay will be determined by the rarity of the species you are about to enjoy.
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No CommentsAmerican Hackleback Sturgeon
The American hackleback sturgeon is also called the Shovelnose sturgeon because of the way the head is shaped. Other names this ancient fish goes by includes switchtail and sand sturgeon. This is one of nine sturgeons that populate the waterways of American naturally. Unlike its Caspian Sea cousins, the Hackleback is a fresh water sturgeon that thrives in the large rivers in the middle of the country.
Fortunately for those that appreciate the roe from the hackleback, it has largest by population of all the sturgeons in the wild. It is mainly found in the great muddy Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. This fresh water sturgeon only takes eight to ten years before the female can be mature enough to produce eggs.
Unfortunately they only spawn every three years but their numbers are so abundant that they are now being commercially fished. Fortunately this is the fastest growing sturgeon on earth and can reach 38 inches in just eight years. This size also makes it the smallest sturgeon on the planet.
As for taste of the American hackleback sturgeon, it is most commonly compared to the Sevruga and Beluga caviar that is caught in the Caspian Sea. The hackleback is a bottom feeder so its food source will vary from fish to fish. For this reason the taste seems to vary at times. Many state that it has a buttery taste while other samples have given off a nutty taste to them.
The roe itself is small to medium size so it will never be mistaken for Beluga even with the fresh nutty flavor. The color is dark to black in most instances that is natural.
Because of the abundant supply, this roe is also very reasonably priced. A one ounce tin can be easily found at prices of $17 to $24 each. Since this is considered a single serving, if you are going to throw a party then the seven ounce tin for just over $100 might fit your needs better.
This is fresh roe that is only lightly salted. Since it is not generally pasteurized, the shelf life in a refrigerator that is kept at 26F to 36F is only 4 to 6 weeks.
To enhance the flavor, many of the fisheries use the same salt as Russian caviar in an attempt to enhance the natural flavor and make the claim that the roe is processed in Caspian methods.
The American hackleback sturgeon is the most abundant of all the caviar in the world along with being the least expensive of the sturgeon caviar available today. The flavor is exceptional and is enjoyed around the world.
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No CommentsBuy Caviar
