Anthony Bourdain Called This Simple And Unique Pasta Dish Absolutely Perfect

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In an episode of "No Reservations," Anthony Bourdain and his wife Ottavia visit her hometown of Sardinia, an island off the coast of mainland Italy. There, Bourdain chows down on one of his all-time favorite pasta dishes, spaghetti con la bottarga, with his wife and family. As the chef-slash-writer raves, "It's a perfect dish. This is absolutely perfect. Just extraordinary. So simple, so beautiful, so good."

If you've never tried it before, bottarga is salt-cured fish roe sacs. Intensely umami-forward but not overly fishy, it is often referred to as "the prosciutto of the sea." The sac is carefully removed from the fish, then left to cure for as long as several months. During that process, the sac naturally dries, yielding a toothy, chewy, aged texture that can be sliced (as in Bourdain's favorite bottarga pasta) or grated using a microplane, like a hard aged cheese.

Sardinian spaghetti con la bottarga showcases the island's bold, robust bottarga as the star ingredient. To make it, as Bourdain explains, "Heat up good olive oil, drag a clove of garlic and a pepper through the oil — just a wave — then add slices of bottarga, simmer until they start to fall apart, add your cooked spaghetti, toss gently, add a sprinkling of powdered, dried bottarga, and oh my god is it good. Garnish with more bottarga if you like! Go ahead!"

It's nearly impossible to talk about bottarga without mentioning Sardinia. The island boasts a long history of bottarga production, with ancient Phoenician fishermen seasoning and curing mullet eggs in Sardinia 3,000 years ago. Today, the Sardinian region of Cagliari, Tortolì is the unofficial bottarga capital of Italy, and mullet roe is widely revered as "the recipe that brings the scent of Sardinia to the table," as reported by Cagliari Magazine. The roe sacs are salted for roughly 10 to 15 days, then left to air dry for another 60 to 90 days.

Sardinian mullet (aka muggine in Italian) is a regional seafood tradition showcasing the island's sprawling coastlines. "It's also the center of the world for really, really good bottarga — and one of my favorite, if not my single favorite, pasta ever," says Bourdain in the "No Reservations" episode. Sardinia's unique water temperature and the fat content of the mullet swimming therein make the fish's roe sac a regional gem. Bourdain also remarks that the bottarga he savored was "made from the egg pouch of the local mullet. While there's bottarga made elsewhere, from other fish, I think this is best in the world."

As with spaghetti con la bottarga, the Italian culinary format of long-strand-pasta-meets-fresh-coastal-seafood is demonstrated by other classics like linguine alla vongole, a popular pasta dish that contains clams. The sauce keeps it simple to let the pungent bottarga shine, and can be made using the leftover starchy pasta water.

Perhaps unsurprisingly considering its strong regional ties, this pungent, briny delicacy can be tough to track down. The best place to find bottarga in the U.S. is at specialty Italian grocery stores, or else order it online — and its labor-intensive production and rareness comes for a proportional price tag. As of this writing, a 2.7-ounce package of authentic Sardinian bottarga from the Supreme Bottarga Store runs for $22.99 on Amazon. Or, a 1.41-ounce jar of grated Sardinian bottarga costs $17.99.

If you can't get the real thing in Sardinia, splurging on the import seems well worth the price, in Bourdain's book. The chef loved spaghetti con la bottarga so much that he even included a recipe for it in his "Appetites: A Cookbook." "After I fell in love with this dish on the Sardinian coast, I asked my father-in-law to show me how it's done," writes Bourdain (via InsideHook). The idea is straightforward. "Encapsulate the essential Italian philosophy of cooking here: Get a very few excellent ingredients, then proceed to not f**k them up." Cucina povera cooking philosophers, rise up. Pair that platter of spaghetti con la bottarga with a negroni (Bourdain's favorite cocktail) and a few roasted artichokes to complete the meal.