Spaghetti with Salmon Roe

I don’t know what to tell you except that we were gifted an enormous amount of salmon roe from a very generous friend and we had to do something with it. I found this recipe for a luxurious pasta dish featuring fish eggs and set to work. Thin spaghettini is suggested, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. Try linguine or fettucine.

Smaller jars of orangey-pink salmon roe or paddlefish caviar are usually less expensive than the black stuff (Sevruga, Beluga, etc.), so if you are looking to make a simple, elegant dish for a loved one, look no further. Double the recipe to include a few guests!

P.S. Lighten the whole thing up with condensed skim milk instead of cream. But do use both butter and oil. 

Spaghetti with Salmon Roe
memoriediangelina.com
Serves 2

Ingredients
150g (5 oz) spaghetti
100g (3.5 oz) salmon roe (2 small jars)
1 shallot, finely minced
A splash of dry, white wine
A good pour of heavy cream
Butter (or a mixture of butter and oil)
Salt

Directions
Cook the pasta in abundant, well salted water until al dente.

While the pasta is cooking, melt a good dollop of butter (or a mixture of oil and butter) in a skillet. Sauté the shallot over very gentle heat for a minute or two, then add a splash of white wine. Raise the heat and let the wine reduce until it become syrupy. Add the cream and reduce again, until you have a nice, ‘saucy’ consistency. Turn off the heat and add half the salmon roe, mixing it well with the cream. If you like crush a few of the roe to add color and taste to the sauce. Taste and adjust for seasoning; the sauce should be very flavorful.

When the pasta is done, transfer it to the skillet. Turn on the heat to medium-high and mix the pasta with the sauce until all the strands of pasta are well coated with the sauce. If you find the sauce it a bit too thick, add more cream. If too thin, just let the pasta cook a bit longer. The pasta should not be swimming in the sauce, but it should slither around easily in the skillet.

Serve in pasta bowls and top each portion with the remaining salmon roe.

Sunday Gravy

America's Test Kitchen was the inspiration for our Sunday Gravy feast, although I must say we went a little beyond. Baby started the extraordinarily delicious sauce on Friday, throwing in hot sausage, meatballs, baby back ribs, wondrous braciole, and a prosciutto butt into the simmering Tuttorosso crushed tomatoes laced with red pepper flakes and Romano cheese. We purchased sturdy buccatini as our choice for pasta to lightly toss with our gravy, but I've included a fresh pasta recipe below that we meant to try, had time allowed.

From a simply made ball of dough cut into quarters, rolled into ropes 3/4" thick and cut into 3/4" pieces, we passed around the potato gnocchi first, heavenly little pillows served in single portioned spoons dressed with brown butter, frizzled sage and Parmesan cheese. Delicious enough to warrant another round!


The salad involved bitter frisee, made less angry with lots of finely chopped parsley, pan-fried pancetta and a judicious amount of my go-to favorite, Michael Lomonaco's Shallot Champagne Vinaigrette to which I added some of the olive oil and white wine reduction I had used to fry the pancetta.

After the refrigerated meats had settled in with our gravy over the course of the weekend, we warmed them to a fine, steaming heat and served with our pasta on the side! Staggering. Homemade bread went along with the lot!


I also made Ricotta Gnocchi, an old favorite that I used to make quite often and was pleased to try it again. The recipe is below, but we didn't accompany with roasted tomatoes this time as we wanted our gravy to be the sole sauce.

Wilted rapini (aka broccoli rabe) roasted with a little olive oil, white wine, onions, shallots and garlic finished us off, served with sauteed sweet sausage.

Without an excess of hyperbole, I think it's fair to say that the spoons, knives, forks and plates were licked clean!



Basic Egg Pasta
(adapted from the recipe that came with the KitchenAid manual)
Yield: 1 1/4 pounds dough
Ingredients
4 large eggs
1 Tb water
3 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt

Method
Place eggs, water, flour, and salt in mixer bowl. Attach bowl and flat beater. Turn to Speed 2 and mix 30 seconds.
Exchange flat beater for dough hook. Turn to Speed 2 and knead 2 minutes. Removed dough from bowl and and knead for 1 to 2 minutes. Let it rest for 20 minutes. Divide dough into 4 pieces before processing with Pasta Sheet Roller attachment.

To Cook Pasta
Add 2 tsp salt and 1 Tb oil (optional) to 6 quarts boiling water. Gradually add pasta and continue to cook at a boil until pasta is "al dente" or slightly firm to the bite. Pasta floats to the top of the water while cooking, so stir occasionally to keep it cooking evenly. Dry pasta cooks in about 7 minutes; fresh pasta, 6 minutes. Drain in a colander.

For the recipe from America's Test Kitchen for Hearty Italian Meat Sauce (Sunday Gravy) click here.

For the Potato Gnocchi recipe, click here.

For the Ricotta Gnocchi recipe, click here.

Soundtrack: Quincy Jones, Hip Hits; Stanley Turrentine, The Spoiler; Sarah Vaughan, Personal Mix; Sunshine Ghetto Day, Personal Mix; Sampled. Later...show tunes and Barbra.