for Male
Female sturgeon are kept for their eggs to make caviar, so what about the males? Rest assured, they’re not forgotten! As soon they reach 14 months in age, they are sold for their meat. Despite it being a cartilaginous fish, it is still has its fans! Rich in fatty acids and Omega-3, its pearly flesh is free of bones and keeps its firm shape during cooking.
Malossol is Russian for ‘low salt’. Malossol caviar is used to refer to aged caviar with less than 4% salt content.
The Caspian Sea covers roughly 360,000 square kilometres making it the largest inland body of water in the world and is bordered by five countries: Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan. Of all wild caviar produced in the world, 90% comes from the Caspian, known for its low salinity levels: at only 13-14g per litre compared to 33-40g per litre elsewhere. Even today, it is a remarkable location surrounded by stunning planes, mountains, marshlands, and arid land.
Roe extracted from the sturgeon’s egg sac are entrusted to a caviar expert known as the ‘caviar master’. Like a master foreman, the caviar master oversees the different stages of caviar production: sorting, assessing, separating, and washing the roe. The master is also in charge of salting the grains, striking the perfect balance for that authentic caviar flavour. Like a cellar master or cheese affineur, the caviar master ensures that the caviar grain properly age and knows exactly when they ready for tinning. Needless to say, this is a job that requires expertise, virtuosity, patience, and passion.
Also known as affinage or ageing, maturing is the time it takes for the salt to soak into each grain via osmosis. The similarity is often struck between the long ageing process required for wine tannins i
A great migratory mystery: sturgeon in the Caspian tend to swim up the Volga, but swim back south along the Iranian coast to spawn. This gave much joy to the Shah of Iran who once said, «A singer once tried to have me believe that sturgeon migrated south out of ideology; but it was clear they preferred coming south well before the Bolshevik Revolution».
Caviar is a unique dish that is the epitome of opposites attracting: the grains are firm, yet melt in your mouth; they are creamy yet briny; delicate at first but with a strong aftertaste. It is also one of the rare ingredients that combines earthy and marine flavours. It is this very uniqueness which explains its popularity amongst lovers of molecular cooking – people strive to recreate the same mouth-feel and sensations of caviar by trapping various liquids in small capsules.
In 1723, when visiting the French Court, the Russian Ambassador for Tsar Peter the Great, offered a spoon of caviar to the young Louis XV. No sooner had he taken his first bite, the young king spat out the caviar in disgust. It was almost two centuries later that caviar was first seen as fashionable in 1920’s Paris with the French craving the delicacy as they partied through Années Folles.
“Fame is like caviar, you know – it’s good to have caviar but not when you have it at every meal”.