Sea urchin pasta

Recipe by: Francesco Laera

INGREDIENTS

• 300g pasta
• 60g sea urchin (roughly 3 sea urchin)
• 1 clove garlic
• splash of white wine
• a handful of fresh parsley, chopped

METHOD

Take 3 fresh sea urchins, carefully open them in half using scissors, then remove the flesh and put them in a small bowl with a spoon (to facilitate the operation use a cloth to hold them or wear gloves). Chop some garlic and fresh parsley very finely and fry them gently in a large frying pan with a little olive oil. Be careful not to burn either the oil or garlic! When the “soffritto” of garlic and parsley is nicely softened, sauté with little white wine, and let it reduce. Put the sauce aside and cook your favourite pasta in boiling salted water. When the pasta is “al dente” drain the water and keep it aside in a second pot (it will be needed it for the mixing) and toss the pasta in the pan with the parsley and garlic. On low heat, mix the pasta with the garlic & parsley, and when it is all well combined, add the chopped sea urchins. Now gently bring the mix to boil on low heat adding some cooking water throughout the process to blend all the ingredients together. Be careful to do not cook the sea urchin, you just need to warm them up. If you overcook them, you will lose the fresh sea urchin flavour. Now plate the pasta, sprinkle some parsley & enjoy this scrumptious dish!