Recipes for pasta with salted duck egg sauce are all over the web. I checked out a few, my curiosity got the better of me, so, for lunch today, we had salted egg and chorizo spaghetti.
The objective is to create a pasta dish that mimics the flavors of the traditional Filipino meal of longganisa (sausage), salted egg and tomatoes. The sauce is made with pureed salted duck eggs, olive oil, sun-dried tomatoes and basil. Cooked noodles and lightly fried chorizo are then tossed with the sauce. The result is a richly textured spaghetti dish with all the richness of salted duck eggs.
For non-Filipinos, salted duck egg, or itlog na maalat, as we call it is duck egg soaked in brine for a couple of weeks until the salt seeps through the shell and transforms the flavor and texture of the egg. The egg is boiled and, instead of slightly chewy egg white and powdery egg yolk, you get creamy egg white and slightly oily egg yolk. If you can’t find it in the grocery, you can easily make your own.
The chorizo used in this recipe is the dried Spanish variety flavored with lots of paprika. Chorizo de Bilbao is probably the most well-known but there are other equally tasty chorizos like Iberico. If sausage isn’t your thing, try bacon or salty ham.
- spaghetti (or your preferred pasta shape) for 2 to 3
- 2 salted duck eggs
- 1/4 cup olive oil extra virgin
- 1 tablespoon sun-dried tomatoes in herbed oil
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
- small handful a small handful of sweet basil (or 1 tablespoon dried basil)
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1/3 to 1/2 cup chopped chorizo
- salt to taste
- snipped scallions to garnish
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Cook the spaghetti in salted water.
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While the noodles cook, shell and lightly chop the salted duck eggs. Put in the blender or food processor with the extra virgin oil, sun-dried tomatoes and pepper. Process until smooth. Add the basil. Pulse a few more times.
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Heat the butter in a frying pan. Add the chopped chorizo and cook over medium-low heat for a minute or two.
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Add the cooked pasta to the chorizo. Toss well.
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Pour the salted duck egg sauce over the pasta. Toss well. Taste.
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Ladle the salted duck egg and chorizo spaghetti into bowls, garnish with snipped scallions and serve at once.
