Karasumi - Salted Mullet Roe

Here's something you don't see everyday. It's called Karasumi, or mullet roe. It's a delicacy from back home, like I've only remembered eating it once a year or something when I was little, and have only seen it served at weddings. I didn't really know what it is or how it's made except that it's some kind of salty fish roe, so I had to google it and according to our trusted wikiepedia, it is "a food product made by salting mullet roe and drying it by the sunlight [...] it got its name from its resemblance to a block of sumi (ink stick) imported from China (Kara) [...] Karasumi is a high priced delicacy and it is eaten while drinking sake." This is what they look like vacuum-packed, always vacuumed-packed. And to be honest they look more like lungs than ink sticks to me.

When I was little I could only anticipate till my parents decided to buy this delicacy for us, and now that I'm all grown up I can finally buy as much of these as I want and finally realize how expensive these things could be at fifty bucks a piece. So if I was able to purchase them and I want to eat them, I obviously had to learn how to cook them. It's always just been served to me and their before and after don't differ much so I've always thought you could just eat them up like in a microwave or something. Good thing I never actually tired that! I googled it and asked my friends who knew how to cook them and they said to just pan fry them for a couple minutes each side. And there's actually a wrapping that some say to peel off before cooking and some say don't, like my mom, because we don't want to waste any of this delicacy! It's edible I guess, kind of like those they use to make sausages, except these get hard and crunchy once you cooked them.

So they said to eat it with sake. But I'm not a sake person so I've got myself some plum wine instead. Also our way of eating it is to pair it with some raw pieces of daikons (white raddish) and slices of green onions and stack them up like a karasumi sandwich to balance out the saltiness. So here's my attempt at making it. Not bad at all.