Way back when I began my food styling journey I tagged along with a renowned food stylist’s assistant while she shopped for some recipe development. We purchased many things but the one thing that left an impression was a piece of bottarga that the silly cashier rang in at $4.95 instead of $495! I immediately drew her attention to the misplaced decimal point and she thanked me profusely (the high-end grocery store would have definitely taken the error from her wages!).
And that was the last time I thought about bottarga, until one sleepless night in October while watching Martha Stewart on Create TV. JT and I were intrigued but I had to find the elusive delicacy first without having to put a second mortgage on the house! I ended up on Amazon and found a small jar of grated bottarga for $20 and I was able to stomach that! As one reviewer said, it’s not the best bottarga he’d ever tasted but it’s not the worst either. We definitely liked the dish well enough to invest in a higher quality product the next time.
Bottarga Pasta
Serves 2 main portions or 4 small starters
Ingredients:
- 1 tbsp roasted garlic purée
- 30 mL olive oil
- 50 g panko
- sea salt
- 160 g bucatini pasta
- 20 g capers, drained
- 20 g raisins, chopped finely
- 10 g preserved lemon, chopped finely
- 250 mL chicken stock
- juice of one lemon juice
- 45 g unsalted butter
- 35 g pine nuts, toasted (see notes)
- 50 g grated Parmesan cheese, plus Parmesan shavings for serving
- 30 g grated bottarga, divided
Directions:
- Cook the pasta until it is almost done but still has quite a bite (it will finish cooking in the sauce). Strain and reserve 125 mL pasta liquid.
- Add about 1/2 of the oil to a skillet and toast the panko with about 1/2 of the roasted garlic, set aside.
- Heat remaining olive oil over medium-high heat. and add the remaining roasted garlic. Add the capers and raisins and continue to cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Add the preserved lemon, chicken stock, lemon juice, butter, and a pinch of salt and simmer for a minute.
- Continue to simmer the liquid and add the pasta, cook, stirring often, until the pasta is al dente, almost 3 minutes; remove from heat and stir in pine nuts, grated Parmesan, and bottarga, toss well.
- Garnish with reserved breadcrumb mixture with reserved parmesan and bottarga. Serve immediately.
Notes:
- I didn’t realize I’ve run out of my wonderful Spanish pinenuts until I was well into this recipe. I discovered I had some apricot kernels so I toasted them up and used them instead.
- There are many simpler recipes for this traditional pasta dish, but I was really intrigued by the addition of the preserved lemon and raisins.
- I made a small batch of Mark Bittman’s quick preserved lemons but didn’t end up using them for a few days, it still worked out wonderfully. I was disappointed that the recipe called for such a small quanitity.
Kitcheninspirations 