Bottarga

A pouch of mullet roe, salted and sun-dried, often coated in beeswax. It is the gold of the Mediterranean and an absolute mine of natural glutamate (umami). Deprived of its moisture, bottarga concentrates flavors of iodine, bitter almond, and dried caviar. Thermosensitive, it is never cooked. It is used as a "sea spice," microplaned at the very last moment over hot garlic and oil pasta, where it will melt and bind the sauce with a burning orange intensity.