Erica De Mane

Sunny  Sicilian pleasures, compliments of Divorce Italian Style.

Recipe: Bucatini with Bottarga, Pistachios, and Mint

Do you need a little summer lightness in the midst of all this winter darkness? I do, and the easiest place for me to get it is in my kitchen. Stewed meat, as lovely as it can be, tends to eventually bring me down, making my brain feel cooked out, reduced to a very low simmer. In cold weather I like to play around with dishes that contain uncooked or flash-cooked elements. Grape and cherry tomatoes, usually pretty decent in winter months, can really lift a girl’s spirit. And I have to say that after all these years of seeing plastic packs of fresh herbs in my supermarket in January and February, I still can’t quite believe I can have them. It doesn’t seem that long ago I’d be hanging in my family kitchen watching my father go through his end-of-summer ritual of salting basil leaves from his garden, then wrapping them in plastic, then in aluminum foil, and then in more plastic (why?), and then stashing them in the freezer, hoping to prolong summer. Inevitably they’d be black when he defrosted them anyhow, but I suppose they did have a hint of fresh basil flavor, and in any case they were still better than dried ones for a winter tomato sauce.

I recently entered into a nuovo Siciliano cooking phase, probably to add some sunshine in my life. I’ve been putting energy into creating contemporary recipes using classic Sicilian ingredients like the bottarga, pistachios, and mint I incorporated in this pasta. I love Sicilian food, with its mix of Arab, Greek, Spanish, and haughty little touches of French, but I do get bored cooking the same classics. The food in Sicily is evolving, thanks mainly to a handful of innovative chefs but also in home kitchens. But you’d never know it from looking through most Sicilian or Southern Italian cookbooks written in this country. They tend to stay with the tried and true. Lately I just feel like playing around with sunny Sicilian flavors.

Buddy and Fumio check out a slab of Sardinian mullet bottarga.

Sicilian Bottarga is an interesting product, a salted, preserved roe from tuna. Think of using it where you might add uncooked anchovies but  you’re looking for a more sophisticated result (bottarga is shaved or grated and added to a dish at the last minute so it doesn’t cook and lose nuance). Classically it’s sliced thinly, drizzled with olive oil, and eaten as an antipasto. You can grate a little over a green salad; I’ve seen it done in Sicily. It can also be used as a condimento for pasta, the heat from the pasta just warming it slightly. True, bottarga is not something most people think of when they’re looking for sunny and light (if they think of it at all), but mixing it with the flash-cooked tomatoes and all the fresh herbs, I found that it along with the pistachios added a little depth to the dish, making it both rich and light—a good description generally of the Sicilian spirit.

In Sardinia, they make bottarga from mullet, and I kind of prefer the Sardinian to the Sicilian. It’s a little less straight-on salty, and it’s richer and moister. It’s also a bit more expensive, but since you use so little and it keeps, it’s really not such a splurge. Either kind will work really well in this recipe. You can purchase both Sicilian and Sardinian bottarga from buonitalia.com. Avoid the pre-ground powdered bottarga that comes in little plastic bags. That’s the dehydrated dredges of the dredges sold to tourists in overpriced food shops in Sicily (I’ve also seen it at the Buon Italia store at the Chelsea Market). That stuff is a complete waste of money.

I’ll be working on more revamped Sicilian-style dishes. The good ones I’ll pass on to you, hoping to lighten your winter load. Here is a good one.

Bucatini with Bottarga, Pistachios, and Mint

(Serves 4 as a main course or 6 a first course; I think it works best as a primo, because of its richness)

Salt
1 pound bucatini pasta
Extra-virgin olive oil
2 pints sweet grape tomatoes, halved
1 large garlic clove, very thinly sliced
A splash of sweet vermouth
A big palmful of shelled, unsalted pistachios
Freshly ground black pepper
The grated zest from 1 small lemon
About 2 ounces bottarga (you’ll want about 1/2 cup shaved)
A handful of flat-leaf parsley leaves, lightly chopped
A few large mint sprigs, the leaves lightly chopped

Put up a big pot of pasta cooking water, and bring it to a boil. Add a generous amount of salt, and drop in the bucatini.

In a large skillet, heat about 3 tablespoons of olive oil over high heat. Add the cherry tomatoes and the garlic, and cook quickly, just until the tomatoes start to soften and give off juice. Add a little salt. Now add the sweet vermouth, and let it bubble for a few seconds. Turn off the heat.

When the bucatini is al dente, drain it well. Pour it into a large pasta serving bowl, add the tomatoes with all the skillet juices, and toss gently. Shave the bottarga very thinly onto the pasta with a sharp vegetable peeler (or you could do this ahead of time and drizzle it with a litle olive oil). Add the pistachios, plenty of fresh black pepper, the lemon zest, and the parsley and mint. Add a drizzle of fresh olive oil. Toss again, lightly. Serve right away.