With a bit of planning and some luck (because lets face it fishing is always a bit of luck) the perch were biting last weekend and as I asked all my fishing friends, if you catch a girl with eggs, please, pretty please with sugar on top.. when cleaning them out.. save those eggs for me.

So you will have a few different recipes shared over the next while, including some that didn’t work and some that did.. and let me tell you this one did!!  I had read about salt cured, smoked salmon eggs on nourished kitchen blog and she tends to really know her stuff.

Now my eggs were so much smaller and most of them had their sacks broken during processing so I had to modify things a touch..  The end result is salty, fishy mouth watering goodness..  Love the color, and depth of flavour to this dried, crumbled “fish egg seasoning”

Only a few more days to fish before the closing of the season for spawning, I am so going to be doing more if I can..

I eat bits of it yesterday and did little dances of joy each time but I also tried it in the most traditional way last night, used as a topping for pasta.. O yes.. it’s the so good that way, I need to tweak it a bit and make it few more times with this type or that type and figure out my measurements before it goes up as a recipe..  but it will be coming

So lets back up a bit shall we..

Ideally you can see your eggs, and these need to be fresh, fresh and kept cold, they should smell fresh and light and they should look it as well. the more you can see them as each egg, the better but I wasted nothing.. its just for some of the other recipes the bigger eggs are better for this process. if they are eggs, they are good for it.

IF you them safely in their sacks, you can do can do a slower air dry on them but I didn’t have that choice, if in the sacks, they can also be given a light smoke on them.

I used 1/4th cup of canning salt mixed into a quart of cold water and I let them cure for 12 hours in the coldest part of my fridge. Per what I had read, I stayed with Glass jars and Wooden spoons and so forth, as everyone said that metal will impart a flavour. (I don’t know if true) At that point I took them out, and carefully removed the eggs from the sacks and any other bits that were attached. the cleaned eggs were put into a glass bowl and I put a plate and drained the last of the brine off.

At that point I spread them on the drying trays, I think I would use the fruit leather trays next time, but live and learn.. this time I did the regular and then put down a fruit solid layer on the tray below them to catch any single eggs that dried and fell though.

I start them out on the highest setting like for jerky.. for a full hour and then dropped them down to herb setting for another five.. allowing them to fully cool afterwards.  I moved them carefully of the trays into a plastic baggy or between two sheets of wax paper would work and I ran the rolling pin gentle over them a number of times..

At that point I had a lovely finished product, dried, salted local Fish eggs, that placed into a clean dry glass jar with lids set and into a cool dry shelf.