Uni bottarga spaghetti

I’ve been doing uni pasta for the past couple of weeks. Trying several recipes and still haven’t found something I would like so this is my version.

PSA: you can buy bottarga on shopee.

Ingredients (2 people):

• 2 tsp of olive oil

• 4 cloves of sliced garlic

• 1 tomato - diced. Do not use pulp.

• 1/4 cup of cream

• 1 tbsp of shoyu

• 5g bottarga grated

• Salt and pepper to taste

• 100g pasta

• 2 basil leaves

• Uni to the amount you like (or cold egg tofu if you wanna save money)

How to:

First always boil your water. Salt it if you want. Then in a separate pan put in olive oil, garlic, and a big pinch of paper. Low medium heat.

Wait until the garlic starts to release aromatic smell and add tomatoes. Medium heat. Stir quickly and add shoyu. Ideally it should quickly sizzle.Add pasta to boiling pot of water. I used barilla academia spaghetti and boiled it for 10 minutes. Constantly monitor your sauce pot. Lower heat if you feel like the garlic will burn.

Once your pasta is towards aldente, add pasta into the sauce pan (make sure it’s medium). Stir quickly to get everything absorbed.Pour in cream. For this recipe, I used heavy cream that was whipped in an isi whipper. I don’t know if there’s real value in aerated cream but it is definitely lighter to taste for me. The cream also clung very closely to the sauce.

Once your pasta reach its aldente time, put it on a plate. Scatter the basil, bottarga, and toasted sesame. (If no bottarga, consider sprinkling fleur de sel but too much because it’s salty). Place your uni on top.

Please eat this once the cooking is done. Don’t really wait! The best way to eat is stirring everything together and letting the uni slowly melt into the sauce.

Substituting uni

! am not a big fan of putting uni on top of everything. It’s a menu price adjuster. However, uni does lend a hand to add a soft fat like texture that’s not too lardy and tough to chew. If you feel uni is a bit tough to purchase, I recommend using cold egg tofu instead. It’s very similar in texture but a bit more fragile.

Amaebi will work for this dish as well.