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Fish and seafood from Mediterranean

Bottargabottarga

Bottarga is the whole roe sac of grey mullet (or tuna), salted, pressed and dried until it is firm. It is a salt-and-drying cure, not a microbial ferment, so it sits at the edge of the atlas. In Greece the dried roe is sealed in natural wax.

Fully documentedFish and seafood6 days – 8 days

Recipe

Bottarga, a photo from Wikimedia Commons
Photo: Φωτογραφία: Χαράλαμπος Γκούβας (Harry Gouvas) el:User:Harrygouvas, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Amounts from a sourceThe times are from a 2020 study of Cabras lagoon mullet (Sardinia), in which the authors set and optimised the process, with 1 h of salting per 200 g of roe and drying until 30 % of the weight is lost. The authors say that small local producers use empirical, traditional methods, so their results differ between batches.
Whole ovaries of a ripe female mullet, kept intact in their membrane[corrias2020][pdo-messolongi]
SaltSalting time 1 h per 200 g of roeThe study did not report the salt amount, only the time[corrias2020]
Natural wax to seal the dried roe (Messolongi PDO)[pdo-messolongi]

Total time across the recorded steps: 6 days – 8 days

Start
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What changes: Starting material: whole mullet roe sacs, still in their membrane

Step 1 of 5
Take out the roe sacs whole
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

The ovaries are removed without breaking their membrane. Output: whole, intact roe sacs.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Bottarga is the whole roe sac of grey mullet (or tuna), salted, pressed and dried until it is firm. It is a salt-and-drying cure, not a microbial ferment, so it sits at the edge of the atlas. In Greece the dried roe is sealed in natural wax. Made in 5 steps over 6 days – 8 days. The longest step, air-dry, turning daily, takes 5–7 days (Corrias F 2020) and runs at 20 °C (Corrias F 2020).

Key numbers
Main step5–7 daysMeasured[corrias2020]Air-dry, turning daily
Temperature20 °CReported[corrias2020]Air-dry, turning daily

What makes this one different

Bottarga is a cure, not a ferment. Salt and drying preserve the roe, and no study describes a microbial fermentation. Unlike fermented fish pastes, the roe stays whole in its membrane.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Avgotaracho Messolongiou PDO (Greece)Grey mullet roe from the Messolongi-Etoliko lagoons; washed, salted, dried and sealed in natural wax.
  • Bottarga di tonno (Sicily)Made from tuna roe instead of mullet roe; in Sicily from Atlantic bluefin tuna (yellowfin tuna is also used for bottarga).
  • Wuyuzi (Taiwan) and eoran (Korea)East Asian forms of salted, cured roe. Taiwanese wuyuzi is softer than bottarga; Korean eoran is made from mullet or freshwater drum.

Safety

Dried fish products rely on low water activity. The US FDA says a water activity of 0.85 or below stops growth and toxin formation by all pathogenic bacteria, including S. aureus and C. botulinum. The study behind the times on this page says bottarga has low water activity but gives no figure, so drying by weight loss alone is not shown to reach 0.85. Dried products packed with less drying, such as vacuum packs, must be kept cold.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

The Messolongi PDO application says that making the product from the roe of sea lake mullet has a long history in the area, and that travellers' references go back as far as 1668.

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
  1. [corrias2020] Corrias F., Atzei A., Giglioli A., Pasquini V., Cau A., Addis P., Sarais G., Angioni A. 2020, Influence of the technological process on the biochemical composition of fresh roe and bottarga from Liza ramada and Mugil cephalus, Foods 9(10):1408paper
  2. [pdo-messolongi] Application for registration of "Messolongi Botargo" (Avgotaracho Messolongiou) PDO, Greece, EU geographical indications register (eAmbrosia) attachmentspec
  3. [fda-ch14] US Food and Drug Administration, Fish and Fishery Products Hazards and Controls Guidance, chapter 14, Pathogenic bacteria growth and toxin formation as a result of inadequate dryinggov
  4. [fathallah2025] Fathallah A., Kamoun M.S., Hkimi C., Ghedira K., Abbassi M.S., Hammami S. 2025, Deciphering the genomic traits of multi-enterocin-producing E. faecium 1702 from bottarga, a WGS-based characterization, Microorganisms 14(1):35paper
  5. [s1] Wikipedia, Bottarga (etymology, variants and serving only), accessed 2026-10-30wiki