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West Africa · Volume 22, The Three Glasses, the Mullet Run and the Grain Rolled by Hand

Poutargue, the Imraguen way

The Imraguen, Banc d'Arguin

Poutargue, whole dried mullet roe sacs, amber and firm, some coated in pale beeswax, drying on a rack by the sea: several whole pairs of dried mullet roe, deep amber and firm, laid on a reed rack, two of them sealed in a dull pale coat of beeswax.

Illustration

Poutargue is the mullet's double roe sac, pressed in sand, rinsed in sea water and dried for days, later sealed in beeswax. That is the older Imraguen treatment as the monograph records it, which kept the roe almost all year. The French word is the trade's; the Imraguen preparation is their own and is not the Mediterranean bottarga. The salting time is in three states in the sources, one hour, about a week and none at all, and the one document that would settle it, a 2011 anthropology article on the Imraguen women's knowledge, is not one this chapter reached. About 280 women, most of them Imraguen, now make it in a Slow Food presidium with salt from a works at Baie de l'Etoile, and most fresh roe leaves the country frozen.

As tradition built it

Makes a store. Days to dry.

Ingredients

The tradition's method, with the ingredients named. Quantities follow as we verify them.

  • the double roe sac of the yellow mullet, taken intact
  • to cover sand
  • as needed sea water
  • salt, by the newer method
  • to cover beeswax, later

Method

  1. Take the double roe sac of the yellow mullet whole at gutting, without breaking it.
  2. Press it in the sand, or in salt by the newer method.
  3. Rinse it in sea water and dry it for several days in the shelter.
  4. Coat it in beeswax to keep, as the Imraguen later began to do.

What a modern chef changes

The cure measured, since the Imraguen's is unread

Rung 4

Method

  1. Salt a whole roe sac in fine salt for a time the cook records, rinse it, press it lightly between boards and dry it on a rack in the fridge with a fan for two to three weeks until firm; that is the Mediterranean method, and no source gives the Imraguen time.
  2. Seal it in beeswax and not in vacuum, which the Imraguen came to do and which keeps the surface from sweating.
  3. Grate it to order over the belghman, or over couscous with butter; the whole sac keeps far better than the grated.
  4. A Sardinian bottarga from a British shop is the substitute and is a different fish's roe by a different hand.
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