On food and cooking the science and lore of the kitchen ( PDFDrive ) 468

A salmon egg Like the chicken egg, the inner yolk is surrounded by a protein-rich fluid, and contains fatty materials, including fat-soluble carotenoid pigments, and the living egg cell Salt Transforms Egg Flavor and Texture Heavy Salting: Bottarga Fish eggs are more frequently consumed salted than they are fresh Originally, salting was simply a means of preserving the eggs For millennia in the Mediterranean, whole mullet and tuna ovaries have been dry-salted, pressed, and dried to make what’s now best known as bottarga (there are almost identical Asian versions) The salting and drying cause a concentration of amino acids, fatty materials, and sugars, which react with each other in the complex browning reactions to darken the color to a deep red-brown and generate rich, fascinating flavors reminiscent of parmesan cheese and even tropical fruits! Bottarga is now a delicacy, sliced paper-thin and served as an antipasto, or grated onto plain hot pasta Light Salting: Caviar It turned out that salting has even more to offer when applied sparingly to loose, moist fish eggs A small dose of salt triggers the action of proteindigesting enzymes in the egg, which boost the levels of taste-stimulating free amino acids It also triggers another enzyme (transglutaminase) that cross-links proteins in the outer egg membrane and helps toughen it, thus giving the egg more texture By generating a brine that gets drawn into the space between the outer and yolk membranes, salt plumps the egg, making it rounder and firmer And by changing the distribution of ... eggs A small dose of salt triggers the action of proteindigesting enzymes in the egg, which boost the levels of taste-stimulating free amino acids It also triggers another enzyme (transglutaminase) that cross-links proteins in...which react with each other in the complex browning reactions to darken the color to a deep red-brown and generate rich, fascinating flavors reminiscent of parmesan cheese and even tropical fruits! Bottarga is now a... (transglutaminase) that cross-links proteins in the outer egg membrane and helps toughen it, thus giving the egg more texture By generating a brine that gets drawn into the space between the outer and yolk membranes, salt plumps the egg,