Spaghetti con la bottarga has always been one of my favourite dishes. It is so full of character, so quintessentially marine. Enough poetry, let us learn how to make this delicacy. The idea is to make a aglio, olio e peperoncino (aka spaghetti with garlic, e.v. olive oil and chilli) and then to grate bottarga on it. Hence,

1. Fill a large pot with water and put it on a high flame; while it you wait for it to boil, do the rest;
2. Finely chop a bit of parsley: you will need it later;
3. While the water heats up, pour extra virgin olive oil (e.v.o.) on a pan, medium flame. It needs to be a good quality e.v.o.;
4. Once the oil is hot, put garlic and chilli into the pan and let them lightly fry;
5. The water is boiling: salt it. If you don’t know how much salt to put, follow this rule of thumb: For each 100 grams of pasta, put 1 litre of water and 10 grams of salt;
6. Now put the spaghetti in the boiling salted water;
7. Cook the pasta al dente. The suggested cooking time for pasta al dente is usually written on the pasta box. However, for this recipe, drain the spaghetti one minute before that suggested cooking time and place the spaghetti in the pan (with the garlic and chilli). Keep some pasta water on the side, in case you need to adjust the density of the “sauce”;

   

8. Pan-fry the spaghetti for a minute;
9. Once the minute has passed, turn the flame off and finely grate about a tablespoon of bottarga onto the spaghetti and gently mix. Be careful not to over do it, you will grate some more bottarga on each individual plate that you serve;
10. The final step is to serve the pasta! As already noted, you may grate a bit more bottarga on top of the spaghetti. Don’t forget to sprinkle with parsley.

Congratulations! You are a privileged human being. Fortunately I still have some bottarga in the fridge…