Bottarga

Bottarga

A display of bottarga
Alternative names	Botarga, botargo, butàriga, and many others
Course	Hors d'oeuvre, pasta dishes
Main ingredients	Fish roe

Bottarga is the Italian name for a delicacy of salted, cured fish roe, typically of the grey mullet or the bluefin tuna (bottarga di tonno), frequently found near coastlines throughout the world, that often is featured in Mediterranean cuisine and consumed in many other regions of the world. The food bears many different names and is prepared in several different ways.

The product is similar to karasumi, the softer cured mullet roe from Japan and East Asia.

Closely related names are used for the delicacy in various languages: batarekh , butarkhah , batrakh (Arabic) or botarga (Occitan, Spanish, and Catalan). The name bottarga is used in English and Italian. In other languages it is called boutargue (French), butarga (Portuguese), and butàriga (Sardinian); avgotaraho (Greek αυγοτάραχο), abudaraho (Turkish) and poutargue (French). The Chinese name is 烏魚子.

The English name, bottarga, was borrowed from Italian. The Italian form is thought to have been introduced from the Arabic buṭarḫah (plural buṭariḫ ), but ultimately derives from Byzantine Greek ᾠοτάριχον (oiotárikhon) < 'egg' + τάριχον 'pickled'.