How to make caviar with humble mullet roe

There are lots of checks and balances to tell whether you ended up in the right field of employment. Cash, coin, moolah is still king, or at least the electronic version of it is. If someone is willing to pay you enough, then most people will do anything. Otherwise why would anyone want to be a politician - know what I'm saying? Dress sense and knowledge must come fairly high on the test list as well. There is nothing like a good suit and being cluey to prove to the world that you are in the correct lane for your life game.

Clearly I have missed the boat on the whole wearing-a-suit-to-work thing. I'm not even sure why this is a goal or yardstick. Maybe there is a whole suite of blokes suiting up each morning and wishing they could wear what they wanted, like me.

Knowing important business-like stuff is where I missed the boat, too. Maybe I'm reading the wrong material to get myself thrust into that corporate high-paid world. I grab my wife's edition of Management Today - that's the sort of publication she subscribes to and it seems to have got her in a position of influence. This instead of my usual hospitality, wine or food, farming magazines that I tend to flick through. There is a headline expose on ''Trend spotter'' demographer Bernard Salt. Truth be told, I have no idea what a demographer is, suffice to say he looks important and sort of happy in that look of ''I've got lots of suits exactly the same as this one''.

Half an hour later, I wake from my reverie. I'm thinking there is not really one reason for me to open this magazine, and I know it's important stuff - Australia's leading magazine for managers. It may as well be written in Vulcan, the good it will do me.

So I'm leaning towards my other test for being in the right field of work - happiness. I have heaps of this - I basically forage, cook food and make wine. How good is that?

In my workplace we don't look like much, but by cripes we are a happy lot. My happiness today is in finding another fantastic product that I really wasn't expecting on this late April morning at the markets. I picked up some fish - to be precise, some lovely freshly filleted sea bass, one of the best fish to pan-fry in butter.

While there, I noted a jar of salmon roe. It's a nice little flavour boost you can add to salads and sandwiches, or even top other seafoods with, such as oysters and scallops. However, at $37 for a tiny jar, it's only for high-rollers in suits. As I went to pay for my fish, a tray of weird orange tubes caught my attention. Yes, it was, indeed, grey mullet roe. Beautifully ripe and for the same price as a jar of farmed salmon eggs, I got 1.5 kilograms of the most highly prized fish eggs. These egg sacs are filled with tiny yellowy-orange eggs that you can have on toast. And with a little patience and salt, you can make bottarga with them.

Bottarga, botargo and avgotaraho all refer to salted and air-dried fish roe. It's a rustic, ghetto caviar made mostly from grey mullet, very easy to make and interchangeable with good anchovies.

Most recently, I had it shaved on sea urchin roe with a soft poached egg, a truly wonderful explosion of protein-rich ova.

The process is to first soak them overnight in a 10 per cent salt solution, pat them dry then toss on coarse salt flakes and place on a tray in the fridge, turning every day. After two days, place a tray on top with a little weight on it and let the watery brine run off. Continue until they are firm but not like little surfboards. Poke a hole in one end and string them up in a cool, airy place out of the sun but exposed to the daily vagaries of the wind. Leave for seven to 10 days. They can now be used and stored as you would salami.

To use them, just grab a truffle shaver. Shave straight on to steaming-hot pasta or risotto, poached eggs and rice.

While I'm waiting for the roe to cure, I will practise a very simple recipe using good-quality salted anchovies. This primal form of pasta comes from Sicily, a place that knows the charms of cured fish roe.

Spaghetti with anchovies, breadcrumbs and tomato

500g pack of thick spaghetti, such as bigoli, bucatini or pici

2 cups fresh homemade breadcrumbs

olive oil

12 anchovies

⅓ cup tomato extract

small bunch flat-leaf parsley

salt and pepper

Bring a large pot of well-salted water to the boil. It should be large enough so that it returns straight back to the boil when you add the pasta. Cook the pasta for the allotted time on the packet, but have everything ready to go. Chop the parsley, put a small pot of water on the boil with a bowl set on top, rinse the salt off the anchovies and place in the bowl with a tablespoon of olive oil, heat through and mash with a fork, and stir in the tomato extract so the anchovies dissolve.

When the pasta has about three minutes to go, in a large pan heat three or four tablespoons of olive oil and gently toast the breadcrumbs - do not burn. Drain the pasta. In a large bowl, toss the breadcrumbs through the pasta along with the parsley, then mix through quickly the tomato-anchovy sauce. Quickly grind in some black pepper and test for salt, adding more if needed, and serve.

Tomato extract

olive oil

3 cloves garlic, flattened and peeled

1kg ripe tomatoes, pureed

½ bunch basil leaves

Heat the olive oil over a high heat and fry the garlic until crisp, remove the garlic and discard, add the tomato puree and basil. Stir and pour into a wide oven pan so that it is only five to 10 millimetres thick. Place in a cool oven, about 50C, and slowly reduce by at least half. This will take up to a day, or you can sit it in the sun and do the same. Stir the tomato mixture every couple of hours. Pack into sterilised jars to keep.

>> Bryan Martin is winemaker at Ravensworth and Clonakilla.