“Karasumi” Japanese Bottarga from Maruhide 丸秀の唐墨

Our source of quality sea urchins “Maruhide” 丸秀 has made some changes after the original founder’s daughter took over some time ago. I noticed “karasumi” Japanese bottarga is available. We decided to get our usual fresh uni (both in salt water 塩水うに and regular alum-treated in a metal case), uni shutou ウニ酒盗 and karasumi* 唐墨. They arrived on Christmas eve and we had a tasting of two kinds of uni and karasumi. In the serving picture, the left is uni in salt water and the right is regular alum-treated. The center is slices of karasumi lightly toasted. we had these with “Tengumai Kimoto Junmai” 天狗舞生酛純米 hot since it was a very cold outside. Both the uni were very good. The salt water uni is softer in texture and alum-treated one keeps its shape but we did not taste the “bitterness” sometimes associated with alum-treated. Karasumi is wonderful with almost uni-like after taste or more like preserved uni (or neriuni ねりうに) flavor which is more concentrated.

*Digression alert: I already pontificated about “Karasimi” that it is originally from Sardinia which came into southern Japan during the edo-period and that the shape of bottarga to Japanese was reminiscent  of “sumi” ink block from China hence the name  “kara-sumi” in which “kara” 唐 means “China” (more precisely Tang-dynasty) and “sumi” means “ink”. We really like karasumi which is a regular part of the “osechi” box from Sushi taro. Karasumi is also associated with a fond memory of when we were in Japan last time in fall. Because of the approaching typhoon we left Sapporo one day earlier and stayed in a hotel near Narita airport. We went to a sushi bar in the hotel for dinner and a drink. It was not crowded. We tried to sit at the sushi bar where an old couple was already seated.  Although the rest of the restaurant was empty there was a “reserved” sign on the sushi bar. When we indicated we would like to sit at the bar, a waitress told us the bar was a “no set menu order,  a la carte only” in English. To that I reply in Japanese that it was fine with us. After a quick look of surprise the waitress ushered up to our seat at the sushi bar. So we sat and a very friendly sushi chef came greeted us and asked where we were from. Once he found we were from Washington, DC areas, he beamed and said “The Nationals!” (he was a big baseball fan). I asked for “otsumami” drinking snacks of his choice (i.e. omakase) first. Several sashimi were served and he said they had “karasumi” so we ordered it. It was very nice and served slightly toasted. The old couple appeared “surprised” at our ordering karasumi (in such close quarters with only two customers we were all aware of what each other was eating) and that my wife enjoyed it. So they also ordered some too.

The karasumi we got was from Hyogo prefecture (#1 below). It was very small (especially for the price). I sliced it and tasted a small piece. It tasted very good but I wanted to compare this with Sardinian bottarga so I ordered some on-line. Stay tuned karasumi tasting coming up.