I bought 筋子(sujiko),salmon roe and made ikura for dinner. I had some apprehension buying this sujiko because it was expensive and I didn't know for sure if after marinating the sujiko, the result would be delicious. Well, the result was amazing. It turned out very delicious. It was worth buying and it was simple to prepare. 1) The fish monger used a net to remove the eggs from the outer sack. The fish monger taking care of this task encouraged me to buy it. 2) At home, I washed and rinsed the eggs with salt water. 3) I marinated the eggs with a tare, sauce I had bought with the salmon roe. The tare was 50円。 4) I marinated the eggs for about 1-hour. 5) I rinsed the eggs with some sake. 6) I put the eggs back into the container and refrigerated it until it was time for dinner. Note: I think maybe a shorter marination is recommended. I thought the Ikura was little salty. Maybe marinate 20 minutes and then check the saltiness or even make your own tare.
Tare (dash, shoyu, mirin, sake). I could have made my own tare. As for dashi they sell dashi powder and a liquid dashi. I have both. Dashi is also made by boiling some konbu or bonito flakes. I feel if I made my own tare I could have made it little less salty by using low sodium soy sauce.
I was surprised how fresh the sujiko was. You can never tell the freshness of the salmon roe without feeling it or even closely smelling them. I couldn't do the feel or smell test because they were individually wrapped in containers. From just looking, they looked nice and bright and I didn't notice any foul odor when the fish monger was removing the eggs. So, all good I thought. Fortunately I was right. It was worth buying the sujiko. For this little amount of Ikura, it is expensive, 3,700 円、however, this price point isn't unusual.
Please buy sujiko sometime and try it!
Aloha Hikari