Bottarga

Eastside Road, November 7, 2014—

WE DID NOT come back from Italy empty-handed, no indeed. One of the little packages was a few ounces of bottarga, the salt-dried roe of the grey mullet, unless somehow a tuna had got in the way. In this case, I'm pretty sure, mullet: the bottarga was from Senegal, purchased at the Salone del Gusto in Torino a couple of weeks ago.

There are not many things richer or more marine than bottarga, or more concentrated, for that matter. Cook prepared penny the usual way, but treated them with a Mario Battali recipe she'd found somewhere online, with parsley and lemon peel among other things, and, as you see, a good grating of bottarga on top. Absolutely delicious. We should always have bottarga on hand, as Cook said.

Green salad afterward, of course.

Garnacha blanca, Ressò (Catalunya), 2013