How to serve trout roe:
Cold, quiet, and never on toast.
Bourbon-smoked trout roe is not a fussy tin. It is, in fact, one of the two or three most versatile things in our cellar: a good introductory roe for a friend who is still nervous around caviar, and a good weeknight option for those of us who are decidedly not. That said, there is a way to serve it that will do it justice, and a way that will fight it. Here is how to serve trout roe so it does justice: keep the tin cold until the moment you open it, and nest it in crushed ice at the table. Spoon it with mother-of-pearl, bone, or wood, never metal, which dulls the smoke. Give it a quiet base that lets the roe speak: a warm blini, a cool cucumber round, or a thin potato crisp, with a small dollop of crème fraîche. Skip the toast, the lemon, and the raw onion, which all compete with the bourbon smoke rather than complement it. Pour something cold and clean alongside, such as dry Champagne, a chilled vodka, or, fittingly, a neat pour of bourbon.
i.
Cold. Straight from the refrigerator, still on ice, opened at the last possible moment.
ii.
On a warm carrier. A crumpet, a blini, a soft-boiled egg cut in half, a small mound of cultured butter on a slice of good bread. The temperature contrast is half of the point.
iii.
With a bone or mother-of-pearl spoon. The smoke is the delicate note; a metal spoon will bruise it.
How to serve trout roe with a glass in hand: the pairings we’ve found work best for the autumn batch, in order of our preference.
♦ PAIRING N° i
Rye Old Fashioned
— Not bourbon, oddly. The dry snap of rye lets the roe's smoke sit up front on the palate.
♦ PAIRING N° ii
Blanc de blancs
— Cool, chalky, high-acid Champagne. The smoke reads as warmth; the wine reads as cold.
♦ PAIRING N° iii
Junmai Ginjo
— The pear-and-apple notes of a clean junmai are a surprisingly good foil for oak-smoke and roe.