Odd Ingredient du Jour: Flying Fish Roe

I'm still exploring the local H Mart's variety of foods for work lunches. The only requirement being minimal prep, as our office lacks a real kitchen.

Last week, I bought tobiko, aka flying fish roe. It was a random purchase- I like salmon roe much better, but it was exponentially more expensive, and I wondered if it would dry out faster due to the larger egg surface area.

So I was left with these weird little fish eggs. In a late-night moment of craziness, I smeared them all over a bagel with cream cheese. And it was pretty tasty, about as good as lox spread, but a little more subtle. I also dipped asparagus spears into cream cheese, then the roe. That technique emphasizes the roe's almost crunchy texture, and is a great rice-less take on contemporary sushi.

Then this morning, I woke up craving rye crepes.

And that's how tobiko blini was born.

The nutty rye flour balanced well with tangy creme fraiche and the sweet, salty roe. Not bad at all. My next project is going to be soft-scrambling eggs with the tobiko. I've seen stir-fry recipes involving tobiko, so it's not that crazy to cook it.

Salad isn't always awful

For dinner, I had a summery salad with pizza. They were both from Whole Foods' prepared section. Maybe Whole Foods should hire me to blog for them, it seems like I don't eat anywhere else...

The pizza was ok. It was a personal pizza with goat cheese, mozzarella, and sun-dried tomatoes. I am quite possibly the least observant person alive, so I was halfway through my pizza when I fully realized why it tasted 'different' from normal- I usually get it with fresh tomatoes, not sun-dried. Not a fan of sun-dried tomatoes- too sweet, and they're usually dry and gummy. These were no exception, but I could deal with them.

The salad, however, was fabulous. I wanted a veggie to go with my pizza, and the asparagus-mozzarella-fennel salad looked interesting. I was put off at first by the fact that they used all the stalky chunks of asparagus they probably had leftover from making their roasted asparagus spears. I should probably be happy to see them using their produce efficiently, but god knows what their profit margins are on the $11.99 roasted asparagus already- why must they compound it by putting the leftover stalks into my ($9.99/lb) salad? In any case, the stalks were not woody, as I'd feared, and the salad was perfectly balanced- bright and acidic, with lemon and shallot. It was a little heavy on the onion, and they could've perhaps blanched the fennel to make it less mouth-numbing, but the overall effect was happy and sunny.