Thursday, March 18, 2010

Neapolitan Crostini and Scrambled Eggs with Bottarga

We’re blessed with a few pretty amazing grocery stores here in Austin, and we also have some great ethnic markets and specialty shops in addition to a lot of locally produced items sold at our farmers’ markets. Yes, I spend a lot of time shopping for food, and I’m driven completely insane when I can’t find certain ingredients despite having all these great places to shop. I once spent the better part of a day on an unsuccessful search for salt-packed anchovies, and I’ve never seen bottarga sold locally, and fennel pollen was a whole other story. The good news is that I recently learned of an online source for all of that and more. I was offered samples of a few products from Sausage Debauchery which offers a lot more than just sausage, and I was thrilled with the quality of everything I received. For my first use of the Sicilian, salt-packed anchovies I received, I decided on the Neapolitan crostini from Molto Italiano.

Before using the anchovies, I soaked them in a few changes of cold water and drained them. Then, I split each anchovy lengthwise and removed the spines. For the crostini, toasted bread was rubbed with a raw garlic clove. Then, the bread was topped with a fresh, Calabrian ricotta that had been mixed with red pepper flakes, black pepper, and chopped fresh oregano. The anchovy fillets were placed on top, and the crostini went back under the broiler for a minute or so. The ricotta was nicely softened and warmed, and the anchovies became glistening. I like anchovies, and I’ve enjoyed a lot of different kinds and brands of anchovies in a lot of different dishes, but these were what anchovies are all about. There was no tinny taste, and the flavor wasn’t masked by any oil often used in packing. They were a little salty, and I’ll rinse them even more carefully next time, but the flavor of the little fish themselves was fantastic. To store the remaining anchovies, I packed them into a couple of disposable, airtight containers, covered them with coarse sea salt, and put the containers in the refrigerator.

Another product I received was grated mullet bottarga from Sardinia. I was inspired by a scrambled egg and bottarga dish I’d read about in the The Zuni Cafe Cookbook. The Zuni dish is a very carefully prepared version of scrambled eggs in which slivers of butter and some grated bottarga are whisked into the eggs before they’re slowly and gently cooked over low heat while stirring with a wooden spoon that has been rubbed with garlic. It’s then served with more grated bottarga on top. It sounds lovely, but I was rushed and just scrambled some eggs in melted butter the same way I usually do and then topped them with the grated bottarga. I’ll try the very careful preparation next time. There’s a cured flavor to bottarga, not unlike smoked salmon, and it was a treat with the eggs for breakfast. It tastes of the sea in a way that I like, and it would be a nice topping on breadcrumb-crusted, broiled clams. I also look forward to using some of the grated bottarga on pasta. Although this is cured fish roe, there are no chemical preservatives used as it is simply dried with salt. The products I received were really good stuff, and the site has a lot of other great things to offer as well.




26 comments:

  1. thanks for the tips! both recipes sound delicious :) did you ever succeed in finding fennel pollen in austin? i'd love to try it out at home!

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  2. These anchovy Crostini sure taste as great as they look!

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  3. Arielle: I still have not seen fennel pollen in Austin, and I ended up placing an order online. I really love it with chicken.

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  4. Ooooooooh, they look divine!
    *kisses* HH

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  5. bottarga - hmmmmm time to google - those anchovies look nice and plump!

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  6. Fantastic looking crostini! I've never had bottarga, would love to try!

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  7. That looks so good! The combination is very interesting. I've never had botarga...

    Cheers,

    Rosa

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  8. These are great appetizers!!! I love the anchovies on top. I recently just got into them over the last couple of years and now I love it.

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  9. I've never had bottarga.. but am more than willing to try your recipes! Guess it's online shopping for me.
    I know how you feel about spending an entire day looking for an ingredient when you have so many places available that SHOULD have it! I end up at Amazon usually!

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  10. fact: i have NEVER seen a full anchovy. very interesting indeed.

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  11. I'm sure the flavor is outstanding. Anchovies are a great flavor enhancer.
    DomesticProductions15.com

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  12. Sausage Debauchery is awesome, and your recipe, well that looks pretty awesome too. Of course, anything inspired by the Zuni Cafe gets a thumbs up in my book. Cannot wait to check it out.

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  13. I've never had anchovies be the star of the show before!

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  14. A very different and interesting recipe. I think I would like it!

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  15. I wish things like bottarga were more readily available in local stores, too. I know they're just a mail-order away, but the best would be to just be able to pick up a stash at a neighborhood gourmet market. Ahh, a girl can dream, right? ;)

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  16. This sounds like a very interesting appetizer.

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  17. Sometimes the more stores there are, the harder it is to figure out where to find what you're looking for. I find that is often the case in NYC. I know there must be somewhere that sells fennel pollen around here - but who knows where?

    These crostini look delicious - and they better have been after all the effort you went through to make them!

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  18. Delicious crostini! I just recently discovered that I love anchovies after turning my nose up to them for years. I never had bottarga either - but I bet it was a treat with your eggs.

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  19. Just this week I ordered seeds for the wild fennel plant. Once I get that up and growing, I hope to harvest the pollen. If the plants and i ARE successful--and when you run out of what you purchased online--I'd be happy to share.

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  20. It looks absolutely amazing, I am a big anchovy lover.

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  21. The bottarga must have added deep layers of "unami'....yum yum yum yum yum.

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  22. this looks really yummy, I love anchovy for the saltiness. glad you found a new place to shop for groceries :)

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  23. This has my name all over it.....
    anchovies, bottarga, crostini!
    YUM!

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  24. What a unique crostini! I'm the same way about ingredients - I will shop until I find exactly what I'm looking for!

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