We are happy to present you our new entry at ByItaly: Bottarga.

Bottarga – in English “botargo” – is a delicacy of salted, cured fish roe of the grey mullet frequently found near the coastlines in Sicily and Sardinia.

Friends and clients have asked us to sell bottarga, since they cannot find it abroad. So we looked around and finally found a high quality bottarga to add to ByItaly.

How to eat Bottarga

Bottarga has a strong, fishy taste and is simply grated on top of spaghetti with some Extra Vergine Olive Oil.

It is also perfect to add on spaghetti with clams or on top of a seafood risotto.

Recipe: Spaghetti with bottarga 

• Bring 5 litres of water to boil. Put in the spaghetti.
• Toast little bread pieces ( or use croutons) .
• Heat some olive oil and peperoncino in a pan.
• Grate the bottarga (leave some over for later) and put it with the bread crumbs in a mixer. Mix it and add it to the pan with the olive oil, garlic and peperoncino.
• Once you have drained the spaghetti, simply put the bottarga mix on top. If zou like a stronger taste, grate some more bottarga on top.
• A nice glass of white wine and your meal is ready.

A little history of Bottarga

The Phoenicians are known to have fished along the Sardinian coast andalso the Cabras Lagoon on the western side of the island close to what today is called Oristano. This lagoonis fullof muggine, ( gray mullet ). Whenthe phoenicians realized that the hens were replete with roe, they started to salt it to preserve it.

This was the beginning of a very long tradition which is still going on.

Bottarga di muggine is made from the hen fishes’ egg sacks. Pieces of bottarga di muggine range from 3-8 or so inches in length, or 7-20 cm.

#italicious