I made this around 20 times in 3 weeks and I have gone from border line detesting it, to now considering it one of my go to pasta dishes. What I discovered while making this is that it is VERY sensitive to minor changes in ingredients.
I began making this by adding in ingredients by eye, which caused a major imbalance in flavors; The salty, briny flavor of the roe was just so overpowering. I then reduced the amount of roe used and the dish became MUCH better, but it was still missing something. Something always felt off about it.
The next 10-15 times I made this, I started to weigh ingredients and literally made 1/4 tsp adjustments. Each change brought about noticeable improvements to the final dish. After weeks of trial and error, I feel like I have come up with a very refined and perfectly balanced dish.
This dish is what I both love and hate about cooking. I am a man of procedure and details, but I wish I could of just generally measured ingredients and cooked this by eye and taste, but that just wasn't the case for this dish. There is just no way you could create as good of a product by winging this and cooking by eye than by measuring the ingredients as accurately as possible.
The difference between a perfect amount of acidity and slightly too sour is a 1/4 tsp of lemon juice. How can you possibly eye that? This seemed to be the case for most of the ingredients in that if they were off by even a tiny amount, the flavor would be noticeably altered.
The 15 times I made this was a practice of weeding out minor imbalances in flavor and texture. Each time I tightened up the final product by making minor changes to the ingredients until I felt it was as balanced and tight as it could possibly get. But this was all based around the fact that I was very accurate with my measurements. Because of this process and seeing how small changes made noticeable improvements and that each ingredient had to be at a specific amount for this dish to be perfectly balanced, just imagining making this by eye and taste is INSULTING to my existence.
I'm not saying all dishes are like this, but this particular one I have to firmly state that accurately measuring the ingredients will be the difference between a decent product and a great one and that cooking by eye and taste cannot duplicate the same results as measuring accurately.
Mentaiko can be found in the refrigerated section at asian groceries. The one I used came in a styrofoam box with about 9 sacks of roe. If you want to know what spicy cod roe looks like, just look it up online.
1 roe sack of mentaiko contains approximately 7-10 tsp of roe (un-compacted in the measuring spoon). I found that 0.7 oz or around 5 tsp to be the perfect amount of roe for this dish.
The amount of pasta you use is very important to the success of this dish. If you use too little pasta, the sauce will be too runny and the saltiness of the roe will be too intense. If you use too much pasta, the noodles will be too dry and the flavor of the sauce will be too diluted. I found 3.5 oz of barilla thin spaghetti to be the perfect amount to use.
Under salt the pasta water. Because the mentaiko is so salty, if you were to salt the pasta water aggressively, the final dish would be too salty. The water should barely have the taste of salt.
I've never tasted mentaiko pasta outside of what I have personally made, so I cannot speak to the authenticity of my version. I do consider my flavor pallet pretty refined, and I made this around 20 times, adjusting flavors little by little until I achieved what I believe is the best balance of flavors.
The condiments can be added by eye, but please measure all the other ingredients by weight that have been listed and use measuring spoons.
ingredients:
for 1 serving
sauce
1. 0.7 oz, 5 tsp (un-compacted in measuring spoon) spicy cod roe
2. 1 TBL extra virgin olive oil
3. 3/4 tsp lemon juice
4. 1 TBL + 2 tsp heavy cream
5. 3.5 oz (1 normal serving) of barilla thin spaghetti
6. 1 TBL of pasta water
condiments:
7. 2 tsp of grated daikon radish
8. 2 tsp of minced mint, basil, or any bitter green
9. 1 TBL of nori, cut into thin, 1" strips with a scissor
10. 1 generous sprinkle of grated Parmesan cheese - you will be tempted to be generous with the cheese. DON'T BE or else it will overpower the dish. 2-3 grates (1 generous sprinkle) is enough
11. 7 cracks of freshly grated black pepper
recipe:
1. Place a pot of water over high heat and cover.
2. Place 1 roe sack into a very small bowl, then using a sharp knife, cut down the middle length of the roe sack, just cutting through the skin.
3. Use a small spoon to scrape out all the roe from the sack. Make sure to be very thorough and scrape out every last bit. The skin of the sack should basically be clear and clean after you scrape out all the roe. Make sure to also not let any of the skin get into the roe.
4. Discard the skin, then measure out 0.7 oz of roe, or 5 tsp of the roe without pushing or compacting it into the measuring spoon. Transfer the excess to another bowl, cover, and refrigerate for another use.
5. To the 0.7 oz of roe add in 1 TBL of extra virgin olive oil, 3/4 tsp lemon juice, and 1 TBL + 2 tsp heavy cream. Make sure to MEASURE these ingredients, as being off by even 1/4 tsp can alter the flavor of the final dish. You don't have to mix the ingredients.
6. Grate 2 tsp of dakion, mince 2 tsp of a bitter herb or green, and cut 1 TBL of nori into thin 1" strips with a scissor. Set these aside for the garnish later.
7. When the water is boiling, add in just enough salt so that it is very lightly salty. You should be able to just taste a hint of salt in the water so that it is barely salty.
8. Add in 3.5 oz of thin spaghetti and completely submerge pasta under water.
9. After a few minutes, stir then check the doneness of the pasta. You are aiming for JUST AL DENTE. As soon as it looses its hard, gummy interior, it is done. It should have plenty of bite to it.
10. Transfer noodles to serving bowl or plate using tongs or a slotted spoon.
11. To the noodles, add in the sauce and mix well with a fork until thoroughly combined. After the sauce has been completely mixed in, add in 1 TBL of pasta water and give it another mix. There should be some pooling of the sauce in the bottom of the plate. If there is none, you added too much pasta.
12. Top the pasta with the nori, daikon, and minced greens in a triangle shape. Over that, add 1 generous sprinkle (2-3 grates) of parmesan cheese and 7 cracks of black pepper.
13. Serve and eat immediately.
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