Continuing the special holiday wild theme (which has featured oysters, smoked bluefish, Scottish hare, and squid ink pasta for starters), on Saturday night we enjoyed smoked eel, seen here in a prominent role within a pasta dish which also included salted anchovies. The recipe is an adaptation of the one found on this site, although I was unable to find spaghettini this time, and none of my usual sources had any fresh long red peppers. Also, the last time I cooked this dish, because I had no chives, I had substituted chopped scissored scallion tops and chopped parsley; I think I prefer the scallion/parsley version, unless it just that the chives were a bit too distant from their origins.
- garlic from S.&S.O. Farm, sliced and heated in a pan along with crushed dried pepperoncini, where they were followed by pieces of boned smoked eel from P.E.&D.D. Seafood and some savory pangrattato (here, homemade breadcrumbs toasted with olive oil in which S.&S.O. Farm garlic and anchovies from Buon Italia had been heated for a short while), the mix then tossed, some pasta water added, and served in bowls, where it was finished with scissored chives from Eataly
- the wine was an Italian white, le Salse Verdicchio di Matelica 2013