Korea and Japan · Volume 53, The Grill, the Broth and the Sealed Port
Ikura-don, cured salmon roe over rice
Hokkaido
Illustration
- Time
- 3 hours
- Researched
- Researched from 87 sources in the brief
Kaisendon and ikura-don both lack a documented single inventor or founding restaurant, most likely twentieth century commercial dishes built on much older raw seafood eating habits rather than an ancient recipe; this chapter names that gap rather than inventing an origin story. Uni, where it appears alongside the roe, is best known from Rishiri and Rebun, off Hokkaido's northern tip, kept traditionally in salted seawater rather than the alum solution used elsewhere and eaten without soy so its own sweetness carries.
As tradition built it
Serves four. About 3 hours, mostly curing time.
Ingredients
- 200g fresh salmon roe sacs
- as needed to submerge the roe warm water, roughly 0.5 per cent salt
- 2:1:1 soy, mirin and sake, for curing
- 240g per bowl short grain rice, freshly cooked, still warm
- a dash, to season rice vinegar
- a few strips nori, finely sliced
- a scattering spring onion, finely sliced
- as available raw sea urchin, where it can be had
Method
- Separate the fresh salmon roe sacs by hand in a bowl of warm, roughly 0.5 per cent salt water, gently working the eggs free of the membrane without rupturing them.
- Rinse and drain.
- Cure in the light soy, mirin and sake mixture, roughly two parts soy to one part each mirin and sake, for two to three hours in the refrigerator.
- Serve over freshly cooked, still warm short grain rice, seasoned lightly with rice vinegar.
- Scatter with finely sliced nori and spring onion, and, where it can be had, a few pieces of raw sea urchin alongside.
What a modern chef changes
Scale-cured roe in two textures, and honest uni sourcing
Rungs 3 and 5
Method
- Cure the roe at a precise, tested 0.5 per cent salinity using a scale rather than judging by eye.
- Finish a portion under the dehydrator at its lowest setting for 20 minutes for a semi dried version, served alongside the fresh cured roe, giving the dish two textures rather than one.
- Torch a slice of good UK fishmonger uni briefly with a light savoury glaze before plating, firming the exterior while keeping the interior soft.
Notes
Be honest with the diner about what the uni is: frozen Canadian roe from a named, reputable supplier, not Hokkaido's own, since no commercial UK supply chain for genuinely UK caught uni currently exists.