Beluga caviar ◆

Caviar beluga

What it is

A beluga sturgeon can take twenty years to spawn for the first time, which is why its roe has sat on CITES Appendix II since 1998 and has been barred from the United States since 2005. What reaches a French table now comes from farms in Italy, China or the Gulf, and arrives under a numbered CITES label rather than a fisherman's name.

In the kitchen

Hold the tin between 0 and 4 °C and open it only at the table. Never a steel spoon: the membrane is thin enough to burst under the edge, and the metal leaves an iron taste — use nacre, horn or bone.

Goes with

Crème fraîche Churned butter Egg Potato Chives Lemon

Same species

Kaluga caviar

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