Serious Eats: Recipes
Dinner Tonight: Spaghetti with Bottarga and Almonds
[Photographs: Nick Kindelsperger]
Bottarga is the cured roe of grey mullet or tuna, and if you can possibly track it down then you should just buy it. It's not exactly cheap, but the pungent fish flavor is seriously addictive, and a little bit goes a long way. I picked some up at my favorite Italian market in Chicago, JP Graziano's, and split a package with fellow Dinner Tonight columnist Blake Royer.
Recipes that use it are usually breathtakingly simple, letting the bottarga do most of the work. This recipe from My Sicily is no different. The sauce is nothing more than garlic, parsley, and red pepper flakes cooked for a minute in olive oil. It's all a frame to let the bottarga shine. A dusting of toasted almonds helps give the pasta a bit more texture, but it's still the developed funkiness of bottarga that makes this dish.