spaghetti with smoked eel, garlic, chilli, pangrattato

spaghetti_smoked_eel_pangrattato

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