Salmon and Roe

Twenty years ago, I learned that, when thinking smoked salmon thoughts, the first name to think of is: James Macknight.

Back then, I was publishing a newsletter called "The Wine & Food Companion" and we conducted a competitive tasting of many, many smoked salmons.

Two salmons finished far ahead of the others: one from the prestigious gourmet shop Dean & DeLuca and one from an unknown producer, James Macknight, a Scottsman working in the U.S.

When we published the results, Dean & DeLuca sheepishly told us: "Well, we call our salmon 'Dean & DeLuca'...but it's made by James Macknight."

We had picked the same salmon twice as the winner!

Subsequent tastings have proven...that was no mistake.

So I was particularly thrilled last year when I heard that James was starting a new company, River and Glen, dedicated to, as always, the finest fish, the finest curing, the finest smoking, and now, the finest wild, organic, natural, and sustainable products and practices on earth!

I am so delighted that decades of faith in James Macknight have led to my exclusive opportunity to offer the great River and Glen line to retail customers.

I'm starting with two smoked salmons, of course. The River and Glen Scottish Smoked Salmon is everything I expect a Macknight salmon to be: elegant, silky, tender, with wide bands of fat, and the most devilishly subtle combination of salt, sugar and smoke in the preparation.

For those who like a "heartier" smoked salmon, Macknight is putting his touch on the River and Glen Norwegian Salmon. It's more resilient to the chew, a bit saltier, and with a more pronounced whiff of smoke—but not enough to overpower the lovely salmon taste at its heart.

Either smoked salmon is ideal for holiday celebrations when only the best will do.

And there's one more product...something completely new in the gourmet world, something that Macknight has been working on for years and has just released.

Do you like salmon roe? Most people eat it at the sushi bar, and while it's good, most of the time, it always strikes me as something that could be better still. The eggs are often a little wrinkled, the "shell" seems a little firm, separate from the "juice" inside and, often, the taste veers towards fishiness.

Macknight was all over this. So he started negotiating with the only two Native American tribes on the west coast of Washington State who are catching sea-run steelhead trout—a species of fish that also offers large, luminous, orange-colored eggs.

They are magnificent.

The steelhead trout is a smaller fish than the salmon, so the eggs are smaller. The diet is more focused on krill, which lends a sweeter-but-cleaner taste to the eggs. Macknight insures that these eggs are hand-harvested—machines, so often used for salmon roe, can damage the eggs—then has them zoomed to Pennsylvania, where he takes over.

And what does he do? He does what he does best...he smokes them!

The result...is...devastating. Somewhere between sushi, smoked salmon and caviar, this steelhead trout caviar is a beautiful thing on its own, or in combination with something creamy (like crème fraiche on a blini, or cream cheese on a bagel!).