Spaghettini With Bottarga and Colatura
- Total Time
- 15 minutes
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
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Ingredients
Yield:1 serving
- Salt
- 3ounces spaghettini (thin spaghetti)
- 3tablespoons jarred yellow cherry tomato sauce, see Tip
- ½ounce bottarga di muggine (cured grey mullet roe), finely grated (2½ tablespoons), see Tip
- 1½teaspoons colatura di alici (anchovy extract), see Tip
- 1large basil leaf, finely chopped
- ¼small garlic clove, finely grated (optional)
- Fresh lemon juice, to taste
- Red-pepper flakes, to taste
Preparation
- Step 1
Fill a pot with water and salt heavily. Bring to a boil over high heat and add the pasta.
- Step 2
While the pasta is cooking, add the tomato sauce, bottarga, colatura, basil, garlic (if using), a squeeze of lemon juice and a pinch of red-pepper flakes to a large bowl. No need to stir.
- Step 3
When the pasta is al dente, reserve ¼ cup pasta cooking water then drain the pasta. Add the hot pasta to the bowl with bottarga and mix well, tossing to coat. The bottarga will start to melt and create a creamy sauce, glossing and clinging to the strands. If the pasta seems very dry, add a little of the pasta water. Season to taste with additional lemon juice and red-pepper flakes, if desired. Serve immediately.
Tips
- Jarred yellow cherry tomato sauce, bottarga di muggine (cured grey mullet roe) and colatura di alici may be purchased online and from Italian or gourmet groceries.
- If you do not have colatura on hand, you may substitute ½ to 1 teaspoon Asian fish sauce. Because Asian fish sauce is stronger in flavor than colatura, be sure to taste and adjust as you go.
- If you cannot find jarred yellow cherry tomato sauce, you may also take fresh yellow cherry tomatoes, dip them into boiling water with a slotted spoon for a few seconds, then plunge them into a bowl of ice water. Slip off the skins, crush the tomatoes lightly and remove the seeds. Note that yellow tomatoes have less acidity, so red tomatoes and red tomato sauce cannot be substituted.
Private Notes
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Cooking Notes
Thom Chu
I got grated Alma bottarga di muggine at Eataly for $15.90 for a 40g jar, it’s fine and a more practical portion than the whole roe sac which goes for $30 or more, it’s over $100 a pound. The fish sauce is called anchovy sauce at Eataly, they carry Agostino Recca for $10.90 for a 100ml bottle. The whole jarred yellow tomatoes are $5.90 for 12 oz. I spent $37.20 on what would feed three people including the pasta.
Sean
As mentioned in the "Tips" If you do not have colatura on hand, you may substitute ½ to 1 teaspoon Asian fish sauce. Because Asian fish sauce is stronger in flavor than colatura, be sure to taste and adjust as you go.
Pat
This recipe is part of my favorite pasta of all time except I add mountains of fresh parsley and toasted, buttered bread crumbs. For those who can't find botarga, anchovies are fine in a pinch.
Beata
Gustiamo.com carries wonderful bottarga, yellow tomatoes and colatura di alici. That's how we discovered a recipe quite similar to this one, actually.
Pass the Anchovies, Please
I know you'll all probably find this shocking, but I don't have bottarga di muggine in my fridge and I'm not getting something that I'll use for one recipe and costs $22 plus shipping. So what is a good substitute?
Christian
I would do an Alsatian Gewurztraminer; and if you must go red, go with something with light tannins and lower on the acid, like maybe an Italian Dolcetto.
Ch Boening
Had no time to buy bottarga & colatura (plus kinda pricey when cooking this for the first time), so I went with tarama (not taramasalata!) which is salted carp roe. Had that in my fridge. It costs just around $12 for a 10oz jar, and you can still use it to make taramasalata. Used asian fish sauce carefully. Also made the yellow tomato sauce as described but with fresh heirloom tomatoes, and cooked them with some olive oil and s p for 10 mins. Sauce came out delicious & very easy. Loved the dish!
Tom sfba
There is no exact substitute for bottarga*, but you might try cured egg yolks. It's a separate project, and a different flavor, but Soy sauce-cured egg yolks could be used to get into the "neighborhood." Here's a recipe: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1017850-soy-sauce-pickled-eggs Use Japanese Tamari. For this purpose of, I'd increase the kombu for more flavor of the ocean. Cure for 3 days. Grate. *bottarga derives from "egg pickle" in Greek.
REM
Diego Rossi recommends preparing one serving at a time: “ The sweetness of the tomato contrasts with the bitterness of the bottarga. It’s best to make the pasta in single servings, as at Trippa, to control that bitterness.”
Mike
In the photograph - is that really thin spaghetti? It appears much thicker but perhaps it's just a visual trick.
Jen
What did you serve with this pasta? Was thinking Arugula salad and ?!?!
John K.
Yes, Gewurz from Alsace would be excellent, as would be an Alsatian Riesling or an even Pinot Gris from the Pacific NW.
daniel pace
I love the flavor produced by these ingredients, as I live in Milano these ingredients are easy to purchase, I find that if you can't find colatura, use grated fresh lemon rind.
skullgirl8
I used the grated dried bottarga like another reader suggested. Otherwise I followed the recipe. I did not like the flavor at all. I like salty fishy flavors but this was beyond bitter and sour. I had to doctor it up so much with lemon juice and pepper seeds, and it still wasn’t good. I actually added cheese to it and that kind of made it eatable. I don’t know what happened, I seem to be the only one who didn’t like it.
Nicolas
Does anyone know where to find Bottarga in NYC ? I know eataly sells colatura. Not sure where to find yellow cherry tomato sauce, but it's probably not too difficult.
Mindy Kaufman
I love this recipe! I found everything at Eataly in NYC, although the yellow cherry tomatoes are not a sauce, just jarred yellow tomatoes. wondering if I need to cook them like i did this time?
Jan
I have an overly abundant tomato garden so I used fresh sungold cherry tomatoes - doubling the tomato sauce, 12 leaves of fresh basil, a full garlic clove, and had to substitute fish sauce (half) for the colatura. I added parmesean at the end because... I have to. Other than that I followed the recipe carefully. FANTASTIC!
heavy breakfast
Add canned clams sautéed in butter and white wine for a touch more texture and protein. Finish with parsley, and a dash of red pepper flakes/olive oil. Home cooked pasta doesn’t get better than this.
Hudson Plumb
My wife, who is Italian, and I were excited to try this dish. We followed the recipe and doubled the ingredients to yield 2 servings. For the Bottarga we used 5 tablespoons of Supreme Bottarga (2x the recipe for 1 Serving) and found that it overpowered the dish, turning it bitter. I see several other comments that are similar. I just checked a calculator online and see that 1/2 oz is 1 tablespoon, not 2 1/2 tablespoons, as specified in this recipe.
Madeleine
Gavi goes great with this.
Mary Jane
This was terrible. I used the colatura di alici and the bottarga di muggine that I always use. I made my own yellow tomato sauce. The result was barely edible, starkly bitter, no nuance. A few hours before I made the recipe, I sent a note to a Roman friend to tell him I'd be trying out this maybe wacky recipe. His response came too late. "I hope I am in time to warn you that bottarga and colatura are not a good combination"...he began. Dixit.
Rich
All, you can buy all the specialized ingredients from Amazon, most available next day.
Ferguson
2nd time making this, Eataly was out of yellow tomato sauce so I bought large yellow tomatoes to make the sauce. They were much easier to peel and de-seed and still low-acid.
Paul S
The only jarred yellow tomato sauce I could find was too acidic and loaded with oregano, thyme and other herbs so it clashed badly with the colatura and bottarga. So as a second try I sauteed garlic with calabrian chiles on low heat, then added spaghetti, a splash of lemon and colutura. Then I grated bottarga on top in the bowl and finished with parsley. This was a winner and fine without tomatoes!
skullgirl8
I used the grated dried bottarga like another reader suggested. Otherwise I followed the recipe. I did not like the flavor at all. I like salty fishy flavors but this was beyond bitter and sour. I had to doctor it up so much with lemon juice and pepper seeds, and it still wasn’t good. I actually added cheese to it and that kind of made it eatable. I don’t know what happened, I seem to be the only one who didn’t like it.
Ferguson
Taking all the seeds out of the cherry tomatoes was tiresome but then my husband used his finger to wipe out his bowl to get every last drop of the sauce and I decided it was worth it. This is yummy.
Melinda
So I made this exactly as written with the exception that I topped with some sautéd breadcrumbs and Italian parsley. It was…ok. My husband LOVES pasta in any iteration and he was pretty meh about it. Very disappointed because on paper, this sounds divine.
MBV
The garlic absolutely killed every other flavor. Will not be using next time.
Jen
The treasure hunt seemed worth it to me - this was delicious, simple and not like everything else. I’ll make it again, now and then. Per previous notes, I topped the pasta with lemon zest, a sprinkle of panko browned in butter and chopped parsley, and paired with a bitter lettuce salad and Gewurtraminer. Yum. Yum! Thanks everybody.
wolfmom
I made this tomight. I got the ingredients from Amazon free shipping, Highly recommend it! Very subtle taste and is delicious. Goes well with a sauvignon blanc. Thank you NYT for bringing unheard of recipes to us!
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