Tarako Spaghetti

The other night at Michael’s Birthday Party, Ryan and I had “Sardinian” caviar pasta. It was delicious, but I mocked Ryan for thinking that Sardinia was a location. I think my exact words were, “It’s like a country like … what’s that land in Princess Diaries?”, “I dunno”, “Well, it’s as real as that place.” Well… won’t you know it that it is actually an island in Italy. Heh. (As our gracious host – the mastermind to the birthday surprise told us… as he ordered Sardinian wine. Yes, seriously. They made me feel quite sheepish for being really catty earlier.)

Anyway, it was delicious despite that whole exchange. In fact, it reminds me of a Japanese pasta dish that I used to love and have ALL THE TIME. Spicy cod roe spaghetti, or Mentaiko Spaghetti. It’s pretty simple. You get fresh spicy Mentaiko (cod roe – which they should have at any Japanese food supply store), melt and bubble some butter, and then saute the cod roe for a few seconds. You don’t want to cook the cod roe through, because that will dry it out. You just want to barely sear it, just coat it in some warm butter. This also eliminates some of the fishiness. Then, you can put a small dallop of Japanese kewpie mayonaise, too. You know… because that is good on anything.

OR if you are like me and don’t believe that you can finish a whole thing of cod roe (or you know… lazy), you can buy packaged COD ROE SPAGHETTI sauce at your local Japanese market. It’s pretty good. I would have liked some fresh cod roe to supplement this sauce with, but it was all right. You just put the packaged sauce on to hot pasta and sprinkle some nori on top. Voila!

I kept telling Ryan at the restaurant that we can make something comparable to the restaurant, and he was pretty pleased with it. I always thought that this idea of caviar pasta as too much for … Americans? Too weird? But I’m glad to be able to enjoy something from my childhood again. Love it.