BOTTARGA SPAGHETTI with lemon zests and fried bread crumbles (2024)

FAQs

What is bottarga spaghetti? ›

Bottarga—cured fish roe typical of Sardinian and Sicilian cookery—is an unusual but tasty treat. It has a unique flavor that reminds me of a cross between caviar and anchovy but more delicate than either. Like a good, aged Parmesan or pecorino cheese, bottarga lends itself beautifully to grating over pasta.

Steeping grated bottarga off-heat in warm olive oil coaxes out its delicate aroma. Cooking the pasta in a small amount of water produces super-starchy pasta water that is ideal for emulsifying the sauce, which is brought together simply by tossing and stirring the noodles off-heat.

Best way to eat it

Grated is the most common and well-known way to consume it. Many people, however, prefer to eat it by slicing it into extremely thin slices, seasoning it with simply extra virgin olive oil, and serving it with croutons or, better still, carasau (the typical Sardinian bread).

Bottarga is wonderful to eat with vegetables, grated over almost any starch or grain, or just on its own, sliced paper thin and seasoned with a little salt or soy sauce, a squeeze of lemon, and a slick of flavorful oil.

Bottarga has a salty, briny, umami flavor, reminiscent of the sea without being overly fishy. Nevertheless, it's a powerful flavor, so a little bit goes a long way. It's best to think of bottarga as a condiment.

Q) Health benefits of eating bottarga food products

A) Bottarga has all the nutrients of fish. It is a superfood packed with zinc, omega-3, protein, calcium, vitamins A and D.

Due to its scarcity and involved preparation it is expensive and regarded as a delicacy.

Bottarga is mullet roe (or tuna) that has been salted, pressed and seasoned for four or five months. Produced mainly in Sardinia, it is also prepared in other Mediterranean coastal areas from Provence to Tunisia.

Bottarga is delicious sliced into thin strips. Serve it as an appetizer: shaved into an elegant thin strip, placed on a piece of toasted bread with lemon zest and EVOO.

Shelf life: Bottarga is so easy to store, from the day of packaging the “the best before” is five years! Yes, yes! Five entire years! Even when opened it can be kept for a couple of years in fridge.

Which bottarga is best? ›

Bottarga from Cabras is renowned for its exceptional quality and flavour and has been recognized as such by the Slow Food Movement in their Ark of Taste, which promotes the finest tasting artisan foods in the world. The best examples of mullet bottarga come from Sardinia.

Possible benefits and drawbacks of bottarga

The main advantage resulting from the consumption of roe is the intake of high quality protein. Leelevate amount of sodium and cholesterol present in this food they make it unadvisable at a high level consumption.

7) How to store Bottarga? Bottarga is best stored refrigerated. After opening, it is necessary to wrap it with cling film.

It's made of dried mullet roe, but instead of being served as individual eggs like classic Russian caviar, Bottarga is made from the entire roe sac. Salt-cured and pressed to extract as much moisture as possible, then dried for several months, the finished product is dense with a texture similar to aged cheese.

The bottarga adds a briny flavor that I love, but you can easily swap that out that with fried croutons or toasted pine nuts, sesame seeds, or sunflower seeds, which will provide a crunchy texture.

Bottarga is salted, cured fish roe pouch, typically of the grey mullet or the bluefin tuna (bottarga di tonno). The best-known version is produced around the Mediterranean; similar foods are the Japanese karasumi and Taiwanese wuyutsu, which is softer, and Korean eoran, from mullet or freshwater drum.

Bottarga is the Italian word for salted, cured fish roe. Often called “the poor man's caviar,” fish eggs have been preserved this way for centuries and are popular both in the Mediterranean and in Asia.

bot·​tar·​ga bō-ˈtär-gə : the dried, salted, pressed roe of various fish and especially the gray mullet and bluefin tuna. Bottarga is the pressed and salted roe of many kinds of fish. It's important in the Mediterranean culture.