Braised cabbage with wild carp roe

One fish rarely gives much roe — two or three hundred grams, and that is not enough for a full dish of roe alone. Braised cabbage solves exactly that problem: three hundred grams of roe turn an ordinary side dish into a main course, and the roe here is not mashed into a batter but stays what it is.

What matters most here is the order things go into the pan. The cabbage braises for twenty minutes, the roe cooks in three or four; put in together with the vegetables, it will turn into dry grains long before the cabbage goes soft. So the roe is added at the end, when everything else is ready.

You can tell the roe is done by its colour: the grey grain turns orange and swells a little. It is the same sign people go by with fried roe and onion, and it works for the roe of any fish we catch here.

The same roe becomes wild carp roe patties or wild carp roe fritters with sour cream — the difference is whether the grain is kept whole or whipped into batter.

Caloric content: 110kcal

Notes

• Beat the roe with a fork, not with a blender. A fork separates the grains, a blender turns them into a smooth mass — and then it is batter for fritters rather than a filling for cabbage.
• The membranes of the roe sac must come off. In a braised dish they do not soften and turn up as tough threads.
• Tomato paste — one spoonful, and no more. Its job is to give the acidity that balances the richness of the roe; with two the cabbage becomes a tomato dish and the roe is lost in it.
• Shred the cabbage finely. A coarse cut will not have time to go soft in twenty minutes, and you cannot braise it any longer — by then the roe is already in the pan.
• Carp, bream or pike roe will do. The difference is the size of the grain: a pike's is finer and cooks faster still, literally two minutes.

Recipe and step-by-step photos — kolizhanka.net.ua.