Here's Why Caviar And Ice Cream Actually Works Well Together

For one of the world's tiniest foods, folks sure have some big opinions about caviar. We've even gone so far as to say you should skip the caviar at restaurants and enjoy it without the costly markup at home. That, of course, enables you to also pair it with all kinds of less expected accompaniments. Blini, toast points, and even potato chips are still all tops for crowning with fish eggs. But, behind closed doors, you can really crank things up — you can pair your caviar with ice cream!

Now, some clever restaurants, like NYC's Caviar Kaspia, have been known to make this very mashup (using vanilla soft serve, in Kaspia's case) as a totally separate offering from that super-luxe — and equally expensive — caviar service, should you need a professional nudge. All caviar and ice cream is, whether you find it in the wild or whip up the pairing yourself, is the classic combination of sweet and salty that people have been salivating over since time immemorial. These disparate flavors, idiomatically associated with naughty and nice, actually complement each other marvelously. Food tastes sweeter with a dash of salt, and the mineral's prickliness is soothed by a bit of sugar. Ice cream and caviar are prime examples of these sensations, with the added zing of brininess to enliven the combination even further. Caviar also has an umami edge, giving ice cream extra complexity thanks to its savoriness.

There may not be as many types of caviar as there are kinds of ice cream, but there sure are a lot. Just like its luxury culinary companion Champagne must be from France, so, too must real caviar be harvested from sturgeon. But that doesn't stop the vast majority of people from calling sparkling white wine Champagne, or from thinking of shimmering, sunset-hued salmon roe as caviar. In this case, regardless of your unhatched seafood's provenance, it's going to be salty, and thus suitable for achieving the sweet-salty mix with a frosty scoop. Which means you can cheap out via the orange stuff, if you wish (consider using coconut ice cream).

As with any menu planning, you want to prioritize balance. Something like a salted caramel ice cream, for example, might seem like overkill along with the eggs' own salinity. It also wouldn't make much sense to introduce caviar to a busy ice cream like rocky road. We'd also avoid assertive flavors like bubblegum. Denmark's double Michelin starred Restaurant Koan finds harmony with a fairly niche kelp ice cream and osetra caviar. Some more commonly found earthy flavors, like green tea or matcha, would also be great. Thinking back to some of caviar's classic pairings (the potato chips notwithstanding), neutral bases like vanilla, sweet cream, or olive oil varieties (the latter also being a bit niche) are great places to begin tinkering with the combination. Or, go bananas — literally. Nobody's there to judge in the privacy of your own kitchen, provided that you use the right caviar spoon.