Black pressed caviar is made from the roe of sturgeon , beluga or
stellate sturgeon. Pressed salted caviar is different from
fresh-grained caviar. Pressed caviar is not scrubbed; it is pressed
with a weight. Resulting caviar heads are transported in sacks; this
caviar is of high grade. Stellate sturgeon 's pressed caviar is the
best. It is manufactured out of fat stellate sturgeon 's grains or out
of the mixture of stellate sturgeon's and sturgeon's roe. Pressed
caviar has the texture of a homogenous spread and is intended, first
of all, for sandwiches. A good pressed caviar has smooth and tender
low-salt taste and a distinctive aroma. This caviar shouldn't be
stored any longer than 8 months.
Pressed caviar is made out of fresh caviar which is unsuitable for
making fresh-grained caviar. For its preparation the tuzluk recipe is
used, that is, salting in brine. The roe is salted without removing
the membranes - yastiks, at the temperature 40 degrees Centigrade.
After salting and light pressing, which turns the caviar into a
homogenous paste, it is packed in jars.
Processing of pressed caviar begins from the same preliminary
operations as for the grained one. The egg-bearing fish is cut, and
the yastiks are beaten through a caviar sieve. In the sorting of roe
mixing different kinds of sturgeon fish is permitted.
The roe is brined in saline solution of the density 1,192 at the
temperature 40° Centigrade. The brine is first heated until boiling,
then poured into tubs, where it cools a little and settles so that
possible impurities could precipitate. The amount of brine in the tub
should exceed the weight of roe 4-5 times. The brine should be heated
such that after adding roe its temperature is 40-42 degrees
Centigrade.
The roe is stirred during the process of salting, which continues for
1.5-2.5 min. Salted caviar is put into bags and pressed until the
water content is no more than 40%.
Prepared caviar is packed tightly, without empty spaces, into jars
made of white tin of capacity up to 1.6 kg, lacquered inside, into
glass jars of capacity 60 or 120 g, or into tight oak 50-liter barrels
covered with paraffine wax inside and with linseed oil varnish
outside.
Pressed caviar is stored in refrigerators under the temperature -6 -7
degrees Centigrade and humidity 80%.
Pressed caviar of sturgeon fish is prepared from roe without any
foreign flavors. Mixing stellate sturgeon or barbel sturgeon caviar
with sturgeon or beluga's caviar during processing is acceptable.
Pressed caviar should have distinctive homogeneous dark colour. The
consistency of pressed caviar should be not too viscous and not too
liquid, but it shouldn't be firm either.
The salt distribution should be uniform, and the taste should be
without bitterness , acrimony and any unpleasant flavors. Presence of
preservatives and foreign impurities is unacceptable. There is no
grading of pressed sturgeon caviar. Caviar should be of uniform dark
colour in appearance and have distinctive pleasant low-salt taste with
a touch of bitterness. Salt content should not exceed 5%.
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