Exploring the Delicate Flavours of "Linguine alle Vongole e Bottarga di Muggine" or Linguine with Clams and Roe of Grey Mullet

When you think on the sea and Sardinia, linguine alle vongole e bottarga or Linguine with Clams and Roe of Grey Mallet comes to one’s mind spontaneously as this dish is linked to this island like no others. It is obvious to find vongole in the Sardinian sea as well as in other regions in the Mediterrenean; bottarga, though, is a regional product of the sea and it’s nothing more than mullet eggs, salted and seasoned for at least 90 days, which makes it much sough-after and therefore expensive. Someone started calling it ‘the caviar of the Mediterrenean’. Follow this recipe thoroughly and it’s guaranteed you will enjoy this precious food so much.

Linguine alle vongole e bottarga

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Good to know

In my beloved Sardinia, precisely in a town called Marceddí by the lagoon of Arborea, fishermen immerse only up to their thighs to collect the vongole one by one by hand. The clams hide 10-15 cm under the sand in the lagoon; fishermen use a selective and sustainable method to preserve the habitat: they use a box with a glass bottom, called specchio, they search for two small holes in the sand made by the vongole, which is the clue to where to dig to get the mollusc, without interfering with the surrounding biodiversity.

This is how we can manage to have and prepare delicious linguine with clams and roe of grey mullet

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Ingredients 4 servings

1. Linguine pasta, 500 g

2. Vongole (clams) 300 g

3. Garlic, cloves, unpealed, 3-4

4. Parsley, a handful chopped, some with the stalk too

5. Bottarga (roe of grey mullet) 3-4 tbsp

6. Extra Virgin olive oil, 10-20 ml

7. White wine, 1 glass

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Let's jump to the method

1. Get ready all ingredients.

2. To clean the vongole (clams) and get rid of the sand inside it, rinse and put them in a container with sea salted cold water. Let them purge for an 6 hours or more.

3. After one hour, rinse again making sure all impurities on the shells surface are gone: you can use a brush for food to do it. Rinse again and put apart.

4. Once the vongole are clean, start getting ready a pot of water big enough for 500 g of linguine pasta and bring to a boil. Ideally, for every 100 g of pasta you should use 1 litre of water and 10 g of salt for each litre.

5. In the meanwhile, start to heat the olive oil in a large frying pan, and add the unpealed garlic plus 4 or 5 parsley stalks and finally the cleaned vongole (clams).

6. Add the white wine. Let the alcohol evaporate and then cover with a lid to let the vongole open: it might take 5 minutes. Discard the ones that aren’t opened.

7. Transfer the opened vongole on a plate; discard the parsley stalks and garlic cloves, then filter and preserve the juices in the frying pan.

8. When the water on the pot for the pasta is boiling, add the salt and the linguine. Follow the cooking time instructions on the packet, subtracting 2 minutes.

9. Once the linguine are almost cooked, ‘al dente’, transfer them to the frying pan with the preserved filtered juices of the vongole . Add a ladle of the linguine water and continue to cook for 2 minutes.

10. Add the grated bottarga. Stir well and then add the vongole too.

11. Add a drizzle of oil and the chopped parsley. Sautée all together until a creamy sauce is formed.

12. Now you can serve the linguine! Add any remaining sauce and the vongole on top of the linguine. Sprinkle freshly grated bottarga on top.

13. Buon appetito and enjoy the linguine alle vongole e bottarga di muggine!

Linguine with Clams and Roe of Grey Mullet