Braised cabbage with wild carp roe

Name: Braised cabbage with wild carp roe
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 35 min
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients: Wild carp roe — 300 g White cabbage — 600 g Onion — 1 pc. Tomato paste — 1 tbsp Oil — for frying Herbs — to serve Salt — to taste Spices — to taste

Published: 04.09.2026

Updated: 04.09.2026

🤤 Здорові рецепти щодня

Cooking time 35 minutes Portions 4 servings

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

Ingredients

Wild carp roe — 300 g
White cabbage — 600 g
Onion — 1 pc.
Tomato paste — 1 tbsp
Oil — for frying
Herbs — to serve
Salt — to taste
Spices — to taste

Shred the cabbage and the onion

Rinse the cabbage and shred it finely, and cut the onion into thin half-rings.

Braise the vegetables

Put the onion and the cabbage into a pan with oil and braise them over a medium heat. When the cabbage goes soft, salt it and add the spices — black pepper, coriander, bay leaf.

Add the tomato paste

Add a spoonful of tomato paste and stir it in well.

Prepare the roe

Rinse the roe, clean the membranes off it and beat it lightly with a fork — just enough for the grains to separate.

Combine it with the cabbage

Add the roe to the cabbage, stir and cook until the grain turns orange. Turn the heat off at once — any longer and the roe will dry out.

Turn it out and scatter herbs over

Turn the dish out into a deep plate and scatter chopped herbs over it.

Serve

Serve it warm, with bread. It is good the next day too, but the roe will have gone firmer.

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.