Today we’ll add a seafood flavour to our Spaghetti Mancini Unique Edition for FABI|COSEBUONE, evoking a territory surrounded by the sea. We travel to Sardinia, the Italian region famous for its sea and excellent cuisine, most famously tuna, which cross the south-western shores of the island on their migratory journey through the Mediterranean Sea to Turkey, where they lay their eggs. The bluefin tuna, nicknamed the ‘racing tuna’ for its swift movement, is captured in the famous Carloforte tonnara (tuna trap), while the female eggs are used to prepare the so-called bottarga (cured fish roe).
Bottarga, consisting of salted and dried tuna fish roe with a decidedly savoury and pungent flavour, makes an ideal dressing for our Spaghetti Mancini Unique Edition for FABI|COSEBUONE, which – as we already know – are best served with a strong, highly flavoured dressing. Though the spaghetti would make an excellent dish simply drained and sprinkled with bottarga, we have chosen to supplement them with another typical product of this land, namely artichokes, so you can fully appreciate Sardinia’s typical flavour.
Made famous, among other, by Marilyn Monroe and Pablo Neruda, the artichoke is a plant with a fibrous stem and pointed flowers, the leaves of which can be eaten raw with an oil and salt dressing. To optimally enhance the flavour of Spaghetti Mancini Unique Edition for FABI|COSEBUONE and draw out the aroma of the Mediterranean Sea, we’ll only use the stem of the artichoke.
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INGREDIENTS
Spaghetti Mancini Unique Edition for FABI|COSEBUONE – 90 g
An artichoke stem
Tuna fish roe (‘bottarga’) – 20 g
Vegetable soup – 100 g
Soy sauce
Salt, pepper and EVO oil, as required
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Fill a pot with abundant salted water; when the water boils, add the Spaghetti Mancini Unique Edition for FABI|COSEBUONE (1). While the spaghetti cook for 10 minutes, prepare the dressing as follows: use a potato peeler to peel off the many fibres along the artichoke stem (2, 3) then cut the latter first into two pieces lengthwise then obliquely in slats, so as to create match-like strips with a crooked point (4).
Warm a spoonful of oil in a pan and add the previously cut stem; add salt and pepper immediately so that the salt can dehydrate the artichoke and draw out the liquid contained in it; when the stem is well browned, simmer it lightly with soy sauce. This will create a sweet and sour aftertaste to balance out the bitter flavour of the artichoke. Lastly, wet the artichoke stem with vegetable soup as soon as the liquid in the pan starts to reduce. It must be kept wet so that it remains soft on the inside.
When draining the spaghetti, pan-fry them briefly together with the stem (5) so that they soak up the flavour of the dressing (6). The Spaghetti Mancini Unique Edition for FABI|COSEBUONE are now ready to be served with a heavy sprinkling of bottarga (7, 8).
Luca Robledo
