Spaghettone in Moorish “Taratatà” sauce with tuna bottarga and carrot extract
A plate of spaghetti in honor of Madonna Santissima delle Milizie di Scicli, the only one to have mounted on horseback, drawing the sword that gave Count Roger strength against his opponent, the emir Belcane. In local dialect, taratatà does not translate to the sound of the charge, but to the “clash” – a great confusion – at most reminiscent of the repeated clash of the swords between the Christians and the infidels when dancing the Moorish party dance.
«I don’t associate it as much with the Arab domination as with the Byzantines; a few centuries later they were the first to take interest in bottarga.
«It is a homemade spaghetti of Sicilian wheat, seasoned with Bluefin tuna bottarga sauce, inspired by the Moorish sauce that was (and is still) used both in this area and in Venice to flavor ‘bigoli’, a rustic, hand cut spaghetti.
The spaghetti is tossed with a pesto of citrus herbs and exalted with elderberry and rose hips».
Note
«The combination of pasta, bottarga, and raw carrot unleashes a souvenir of my childhood. Magically, I rediscovered the taste of the gelsi (a white mulberry common in Sicily) that we ate straight from the trees.
«The combination of these three elements recreated something miraculously floral. It served in my realization of the difference between a well-made kitchen and a creative kitchen, from zero to two stars».
The Bluefin tuna bottarga is part of a line of products signed by Sultano; a una bottarga of two sets of hands, , selected by Ciccio Sultano and entrusted to the master Alfio Vissalli.