Mentaiko

Mentaiko (polluck or cod roe preserved with salt and red pepper, often called "spicy cod roe" in English) is one of my favourite foods in the world, but we don't eat if often because it's expensive. Or at least the good stuff is expensive, but as I've discovered the cheap stuff is cheap for a reason and just not worth buying. And then there's the really good stuff, mentaiko so rare you can't buy it in stores: you have to buy it where it's made, or by mail order, or have a very kind person send it to you as a present. Which is how we got this stuff:

It arrived in a refrigerated delivery truck, shipped from Hakata (a city in southern Japan famous for its mentaiko) inside two boxes. The inner box is meant to look like the wooden container mentaiko used to be sold in, and was actually reinforced on the inside with real wood. Typical Japanese packaging, with incredible attention to detail but rather excessive (and a real bitch to tear apart for recycling).

Inside were seven sacs of roe (you can only see six here because I'd already taken one out for sampling). These were bigger and more beautiful than anything I've ever bought, and according to the package made without artificial colouring (cheaper mentaiko is often dyed red).

There's a lot you can do with mentaiko, but the best thing to do with top quality roe is simply serve it over rice. So that was the first thing we did, and it was delicious. It tasted rich without being fishy, had a good level of spice, and although the texture was creamy, each roe managed to hold up well and pop in the mouth. Unfortunately it also had a strong sake odor, which my husband liked but I wasn't crazy about.

The rest of the mentaiko was served in ways that would reduce the sake smell. Here is rice with yakimentaiko (grilled mentaiko), cooked whole and sliced. The picture didn't turn out well so it's hard to see, but it is cooked on the outside and pink in the centre: I love the contrast of the creamy inside and firm outside. Yakimentaiko is also a great filling for onigiri (rice balls), which is exactly what happened to the leftovers from this meal.

My other favourite way to eat mentaiko is as mentaiko spaghetti. This is one of the simplest recipes in the world (although the dish has a million variations, some of them quite complicated), and involves nothing more than scooping out the roe from a sac or two of mentaiko, mixing it with melted butter, and tossing with spaghetti. Toppings, like chiffonade of shiso (perilla), crumbled nori seaweed or the sliced negi (long onion) shown here, are optional.

For a dish with such a short ingredient list, mentaiko spaghetti is ridiculously good. I'd eat it all the time if I could, and next time we're lucky enough to get a box of mentaiko I'm stocking up on spaghetti and butter. Or maybe I should just move to Hakata.

Comments

[Tokyofoodcast]

I love mentaiko!!! Mentaiko with sake ordor - it sounds good. It's so versatile, but I totally agree with you about just mentaiko over rice is the best combination.

[Rona]

yummy! I bought some cod roe in a jar with a vague memory of mentaiko spaghetti from my time in Japan. I was thinking I could re-create this dish at home? What do you think? any suggestions??!

[illahee]

i would LOVE it if you moved to fukuoka! *hint hint* LOL

...but i hate fish and don't like spicy food so i am not a fan of mentaiko. *sigh* i think there's a mentaiko company in my city, though....

[astrorainfall]

I used to be addicted to conbini mentaiko onigiris and I thought they tasted pretty damn good, so when you said that cheap mentaiko is not that great....I can only imagine how the porsche of mentaiko tastes in your pix.

[Shan]

CRAVE!!!!

[Lynne]

yum, i want to try it now! =P
i wonder if LA's japan village have places that serve these dishes you write about....

i doubt it though =|

i could only visually enjoy the food pics...

[meemalee]

Did the tarako girls ever do a mentaiko version? I love metaiko too :)

[suzy]

When I first moved to Japan I thought mentaiko spaghetti was the most horrendous thing but it definitely grew on me, and by the time we left I enjoyed it.
That Japanese packaging is beautiful (although you're right about it being tedious to open / recycle).

[Shibuya Tokyo]

Incredible pics, great blog!

Cant say I'm into Mentaiko at all though.

[Maria]

After hearing how horrible the mentaiko readily available in markets are for people, I had to stop buying them... looking at your photos, I'm salivating!! Thanks for the visual stimulation ;-)

Any guidance on where or how I can go about purchasing quality mentaiko in Japan?

Thank you!

[Amy]

Thank you all for the comments.

Rona, this is probably too late but the easiest thing to do is mix the roe with soft or melted butter (the proportion can be anywhere from one part butter to two parts roe to one part butter to one part roe) and toss with cooked spaghetti.

Illahee, I'd love to at least visit Fukuoka/Hakata some day. I went to Kyushu when I did my cross-Japan tour, but Fukuoka and Nagasaki were completely bypassed. And they were the places I was most looking forward to!

Meemalee, I guess mentaiko is too spicy for the little ones, so no mentaiko girls. It's a good thing too, because those tarako girls really creeped me out!

Maria, how bad is mass-market mentaiko for you? I only object to the flavour, didn't know it was unhealthy. Expensive department store mentaiko is good, as is the Hakata mentaiko available, for some reason, at airports across Japan. We occasionally pick some up at Haneda.

[a.todd]

Can you give me information on the material used for the box. My country of Trinidad is awash in unhealthy foam boxes. Most appreciated.