Recipe below (in text): Spaghetti with Bottarga, Green Chili, and Almonds
Bottarga is a salted fish roe sac that has been pressed to compactness and then left to dry. As you can see in the arty photo above, it looks like a big orange tongue. It’s made in various forms in many countries and has an ancient lineage. In Japan it’s called karasumi, in France it’s poutargue. Butarkah is its Arab name, which is where the Italians got the word bottarga from. I first tasted Italian bottarga in Trapani, Sicily, and even I who love all things sea was perplexed. Why didn’t I like it more? What I ate was Sicily’s bottarga made from tuna roe. It was, I’d say, direct in flavor, a hit of fish without nuance, nothing I’d go on to dream about, the way I dream about the anchovies from the town of Cetara on the Amalfi Coast. Sometime after my first encounter with Sicilian bottarga, I tasted bottarga di muggine, bottarga made in Sardegna from grey mullet roe, not tuna. It still had that characteristic bitterness but also a whiff of sweet sea breeze and a more delicate taste.
Back in New York City, Il Buco Alimentari, on Great Jones Street, has been serving a good spaghetti tossed with shavings of Sardinian bottarga since the place opened in 2011, adding just lemon and a little parsley. That is my all-time favorite way to eat good bottarga, tossed with spaghetti. You could, I suppose, use a fresh egg tagliatelle instead, but I wouldn’t go with anything like rigatoni, for instance. That would be too robusto for such a delicate dish. I go to Il Buco Alimentari when I want to have this perfect dish in a restaurant and not make it at home. But making it at home is simple. You just have to have the bottarga. I can’t say bottarga is a typical pantry item in my kitchen, but I’ve definitely been buying it more often lately.
I like to purchase bottarga di muggine made by L’Oro di Cabras, in Sardegna, from Gustiamo. It’s the best one I’ve used so far. You can buy it from Gustiamo directly or via Amazon. If I need bottarga fast and can’t wait for a delivery (that’s been known to happen), I sometimes get it at Buon’Italia, in the Chelsea Market. If you don’t know the shop, please try to go when you’re in the neighborhood. It’s home to Latini pasta from the Marche and all sorts of Italian cheeses and cured and fresh meats, including excellent ’nduja and pork sausage, and just about any Italian food item you might be dreaming about, such as fusilli flavored with spirulina algae, which looks intriguing but I’ve yet to actually purchase. And if you can’t deal with the push of tourists lining up for steamed lobsters or tongue tacos on the main floor, there’s a side door you can slip through on 15th Street that takes you directly downstairs to where most of the real grocery stores are. You’ll avoid a lot of backup that way.
For my most recent version of spaghetti with bottarga, I got a little more elaborate than the lemon-and-parsley approach I learned from Il Buco Alimentari. This time I added toasted almonds and found that their richness tempered the slight bitterness of the roe, making the whole thing taste lusher, more rounded. Along with a good amount of lemon, I added a fine dice of green jalapeño, whose gentle heat played against the lemon, charging the dish up from both ends.
To make my spaghetti with bottarga, green chili, and almonds for two, the first thing you’ll want to do is toast a handful of whole blanched almonds and then chop them lightly. The better your almonds, the deeper the taste. I used Sicilian almonds from Noto, which have the aroma of almond extract (I always wondered where they got the idea for that aroma).
Next you’ll need to peel the outer membrane off your bottarga. That is the thin skin that encloses the roe sac. It turns kind of papery after drying. It’s not unhealthy to eat; I remove it mainly because it shreds when you grate the bottarga, and it could get stuck in your throat (which I guess would actually make it unhealthy). It may or may not come off in large pieces, so just do the best you can. Peel off about as much as you think you’ll be using. Grate about ¾ cup of the bottarga onto a plate, using a cheese grater. I used a medium, not really fine, grate since I didn’t want it to turn the bottarga to dust. You’ll ideally wind up with a nice pile a fluffy orange bits. (Please don’t waste your money on pre-grated bottarga—the ones I’ve tried have all been dry. The good news is that bottarga roe purchased whole is so tightly packed it lasts for months and months even after you open it, which is why it was invented in the first place. Just keep it in your fridge, wrapped in plastic.)
Put up a pot of pasta cooking water, add salt, and bring it to a boil. Drop in about ⅓ pound of spaghetti.
Thinly slice two fresh garlic cloves. Seed and mince a small jalapeño. Zest a small lemon, and then cut it in half, since you’ll need some of its juice later on. Chop the leaves from a few large thyme sprigs and a larger amount of flat-leaf parsley. It’s important to get your prep in order before you start cooking, since it will all go fast.
Get out a large sauté pan, set it over medium heat, and add about 3 tablespoons of good olive oil. Add the garlic and the jalapeño, and let it warm through just until you get a nice aroma. You don’t want the garlic to color. Add a big splash of dry vermouth, and let it bubble for about 30 seconds.
When the spaghetti is al dente, drain it, leaving some water clinging to the strands, and add it to the pan. Toss it briefly. Turn off the heat, and add the lemon zest, a big squeeze of lemon juice, and a little more of your good olive oil. Add the thyme and the parsley. Add all but about a tablespoon or so of the bottarga, and toss again, making sure you’ve turned off the heat. You don’t want the bottarga to actually cook or it will lose its freshness.
Portion out the spaghetti into two bowls. Sprinkle on a generous amount of the almonds, and finish with the remaining bottarga. Serve right away.