When I was a child, fish is a regular feature on our dining table. Milkfish, Tilapia, red grouper and mackerel scad are the usual fare but there’d be a lot more served dry, with sauce, smoked and grilled. My favorite part of the Milkfish would be…the belly. Unfortunately, my older brother loves it too so we would often engage in a fork-war to get to them first. ^_^
But for most fish, I would always save the roe/eggs (not to be confused with milt) if they have those intact, my mom knew how I love them and she would often pick those with a lot of eggs just for me. Then, I never ate them raw…I could not and I think my mom wouldn’t allow it for fear of the unknown. We rarely eat raw food unless it’s sushi, not even ceviche nor kinilaw (cooked in vinegar alone not with fire). And because then I don’t really have a say on what food to serve, I can’t experiment. ^_^
Now that I am the diva of my own kitchen, raw food has become a regular. Aside from greens and other munch-ready vegetables, caviar and sushi ingredients, which I can make on my own now, found themselves in our kitchen.
So today’s dish is similar to a pasta dish, I think, I’ve already featured years ago sans salmon roe. This is almost the same as the simple carbonara recipe but instead of using bacon, we use salmon and we substituted the bacon fat with butter.
Ingredients:
Butter
1 medium Shallot, chopped
Spaghetti
Smoked Salmon, cut into strips
Ikura/Cured Salmon roe
1 Egg
a teaspoon Pepper
pinch of salt
Optional:
Parsley
Cooking cream
Procedure:
Cook Spaghetti per package directions but minus 1-2 minutes the usual cooking time.
In a pan, melt butter and saute shallots until translucent. Remove from heat and add smoked salmon (cook minimally and leave some for topping).
In a separate bowl, beat the egg, add pepper and salt.
Drain spaghetti and add to the butter, shallot, salmon in pan and on very low heat. Add egg mixture and stir immediately. Here, you can opt to add cooking cream or not. I prefer not to add it because of the egg which makes the pasta creamy already.
Remove the pan from stove and serve pasta on plates, top with remaining smoked salmon, salmon roe and parsley.
This is great with a glass of champagne or perhaps some bruschetta drizzled with olive oil. Perfect for a hurried lunch or dinner!
