Ciao Acerbicacid, sorry but the lazy sunday turned into a lazy monday...
acerbicacid;1170265
said:
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In that case - It will be macaroni from now on justplainbill - of whatever size and shape.
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I found some macaroni for you, ancient Neapolitan style:
http://www.food-info.net/images/pasta/pastaseller.jpg
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My all time favourite pasta sauce is puttanesca, I usually have it with linguine(i?), sometimes with spaghetti nero de seppia. Which pasta would you recommend, either of these or something else?
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What a beautiful sauce! I love olives, fresh tomatoes, anchovies and capers (especially the last two) as pasta sauces ingredients. I think your linguine are a very good choice for this sauce.
Personally, in this case I like to respect our local tradition: I serve puttanesca sauce with long, thick pasta shapes. I love to eat it with bucatini: this pasta long strands bind well all the various small pieces of the different ingredients, and some of the tomato sauce finds its way inside the pasta hole.
Sorry, but I don't know what to say about those black spaghetti and puttanesca sauce, I never tried them. I appreciate the sauce “al nero di seppia”, with spaghetti or tagliolini, but I don't like the idea to have a pasta flavored with that fragrance. Certainly, I could try, maybe I'll discover a brave new world!
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I also have some bottarga (brought from Sicily), do you have any good ideas for this in a sauce and the pasta to use too please?
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First of all, I would use long and thick pasta, as with your puttanesca sauce, even if in Sardinia, where you can find the best mullet bottarga, they serve this fishy food with malloreddus, a small, shell-shaped pasta type.
Secondly, mullet bottarga (bottarga di muggine) is more delicate, while the tunny one (bottarga di tonno) has a more decise, savory, taste. When you prepare your sauce, keep in mind this distinction, otherwise the final taste of your recipe could be too strong (in the second case), or too delicate (in the first case).
Third point: bottarga doesn't drive me crazy, but I absolutely don't want to dishearten you, it's just a matter of taste, for example I hate liver, I could die of starvation rather than eating that thing
Maybe I could taste bottarga again now and see what happens...
The first recipe, very simple, comes from a friend of mine. He combines spaghetti, a garlic clove, some peperoncino, EVOO, salt and, obviously, bottarga. I never saw him preparing the recipe, but I tasted it and asked him some years ago to explain me how to proceed. And he likes to use a copper pan, but I don't think this is mandatory!
First of all, he prefers bottarga di muggine, but I suppose you could use also bottarga di tonno (which has a stronger fragrance).
Grate 80 g bottarga for 4 persons (obviously, unless you bought the grated version, yet). Peel 1 clove of garlic and finely dice it, then sautée in a pan with abundant oil and the amount of peperoncino which suits you (if the sauce it's VERY hot, you'll loose some of the fragrance, as you may suppose), for a couple of minutes, more or less. Then cook the spaghetti al dente, drain them, put them in the pan and mix them with the sauce, on a high fire for no more then a minute. Put the pasta in the serving dishes, add some crude EVOO and the grated bottarga (80 grams for 4 person).
Another recipe I found on the Web: grate the bottarga, finely dice 2 garlic cloves, finely chop some parsley. Put these 3 ingredients in a bowl, add a tablespoon of EVOO and work the mix with a fork. You want to obtain a cream, so you can add a few teaspoons of warm water to easy the procedure. Cook pasta and mix it with the sauce in a proper bowl, then serve at once.
Buon appetito, Acerbicacid!
And please let me know what happens with your bottarga pasta
!!
