Ikra Showdown: Russia vs. Japan

Every few months, I get a bout of food homesickness, so I head to Waitrose (a British supermarket) to buy salmon roe. It's a luxury ingredient that, when split between two people, only amounts to a single bite. I love eating it the Japanese way: a hearty bowl of rice topped with salmon roe, served with seaweed and rolled omelet. Otherwise, I'll imagine I'm at a sushi restaurant and munch on a couple of salmon roe gunkan-maki.

Today, I want to introduce you to the Russian way of eating it.

When I traveled to Riga, the capital of Latvia (which gained independence from Russia in 1991), I was so excited to see so much salmon roe for sale at the market. I also discovered that it is written as ' ikra' in Russian!! Ikra = salmon roe.

They eat ikra with pancakes.

Russian blini and ikra Blini

Oh, man. This was delicious. The saltiness of the salmon roe and the smooth, mellow liquid are brought out by the light, non-assertive, unsweetened pancakes (unsweetened—that's the key) and the other supporting ingredients that don't try to steal the show. As for the texture, aside from the pop of the salmon roe, everything else is soft and creamy. The color combination is beautiful, too.

Japan's salmon roe on rice vs. Russia's ikra on mini pancakes
I still can't decide which one wins, but either way, I love salmon roe (ikra).

As for the actual travelogue of Riga, I'll write that later (I wrote too much yesterday and got tired).

Note is excellent at recommending articles by other creators when you write posts like this.

This person spells it 'blini'.