Goth pasta

[triskellian]

One of the most memorable things smiorgan and I ate on our honeymoon in Venice was risotto nero, made with cuttlefish ink - which really did make the whole thing black - and ever since then I've vaguely been looking for somewhere to buy some and attempt the same thing at home.

A few weeks ago, I was having dinner in Carluccio's in Bicester, and the deli was still open after we'd finished eating, so we wandered around looking for yummy things to buy, and I found cuttlefish ink! My companion was rather baffled by my extreme excitement over a small and unassuming box, but last night's dinner (and today's lunch) proved that my excitement was entirely justified :-) smiorgan made black pasta*, and it was amazing - the sauce that had been bright tomato-red halfway through cooking was black by the time it reached our plates, and the flavour was... well, indescribable, really. Strong, and a bit fishy, but unlike anything else I've ever eaten, and absolutely delicious.

Eating my lunch today, I kept having to restrain myself from giggling at my black, tentacular food :-)

*Note that this icon is perfectly appropriate, because that recipe does indeed start with "fry an onion and some garlic".

Comments

[cuthbertcross.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I bought a little jar of black pasta sauce from Carluccio's and it was a bit grim, to be honest.

I am not sure if the ink by itself tastes better - I eat all manner of strangenessess in the fishie department, but this particular sauce really didn't do it for me. It just tasted rather *earthy* (in the way beetroot sometimes does). Maybe it's my subconcious refusing black grainy sauce as a legitimate choice...

[triskellian]

This didn't taste earthy to me at all, so the jar sauce is probably different. Ours was two tiny sachets of thick liquid ink, stirred into a very simple tomato sauce, and I really recommend it if you want to give ink another shot.