Cream Tarako Spaghetti

One of my favorite dish of all times is Tarako spaghetti (Spaghetti with spicy pollock roe sauce). I am a huge fan of this Japanese dish and it is definitely one of my comfort food.
Usually, this sauce comes in a little pack and you just need to season your pasta with butter, and the toppings which consist of nori (seaweed) and tarako (spicy cod roe).
Recently, in the Japanese food store in West London, I found a new kind of tarako sauce called cream tarako. 

Cream tarako from a pack!

As I have not been to Japan in 15 years, I don't know much about current trends there and all the new products that come out (except those that reach Europe i.e. barely any). Anyways, trying this new sauce was a total revelation to me. I never thought that fish eggs and cream could go so well. In order to understand what I mean you really need to try tarako first. Tarako is roe (fish eggs) of cod that have been salted; when I was small I always used to think it looked like a tongue (the fish eggs come in a little sack that resembled a tongue and it was red :P). It can also be spicy which is my favorite, called karashi mentaiko. I used to munch the spicy one with my parents back in Japan during their aperitif ;)

Mentaiko: top is already 'dissected' to be able to scoop the eggs and bottom is just normal :P 

As any of the already prepared sauces are very expensive in London (around 4£ for the cream tarako and normal tarako one) I decided to make it myself. Checked a few recipes online to get inspired and decided to make my own version of it. So here it is! :)

Cream Tarako Spaghetti recipe:

Ingredients for 3 people:

• 400-450 gram of spaghetti
• Butter 
• 2 teaspoon soya sauce
• 1 teaspoon lime/lemon juice 
• 3 Mentaiko (difficult ingredient to find, you have to go to a Japanese fishmonger if possible :()
• 300 ml liquid cream 
• 1 teaspoon of mayonnaise (Japanese Kyupi Mayonnaise is advised or you can skip this)
• Seaweed (seasonning)
• Wasabi (optional)

Preparation:

1. Fill in your pot with water for the pasta. 
2. While the water boils, cut the mentaiko in half and use a spoon to scoop out the eggs and place them in a little bowl. Make sure to scrape most of it! You will be left with a transparent skin like sack; throw it out, we wont need it anymore.
3. Add lime or lemon juice to the eggs in order to get the fishy smell off and mix. Do the same with soya sauce (this is to give it some extra flavour).
4. When you see the water for the pasta is boiling, throw the pasta in and time it until they are al dente. While they are cooking, prepare another large pot (big enough to contain the cooked pasta later on) and add the cream on low heat and wait until it's warm. 
5. Before the pasta is done, stir the mentaiko one last time and add it to the cream. Stir until there are no more big clumps of eggs (at this point your cream will turn pink-ish). Add a bit of Japanese mayo at this point if you want. 
6. When the pasta is drained, add in the large pot, add some butter and coat them evenly with the creamy sauce.
7. Serve on a plate and decorate it with some seaweed and wasabi (this step is optional. Personally I like the little kick it gives and cream and wasabi go great together). You can also keep some mentaiko as decoration like I did :) 

For this recipe, I decided not to cook the eggs directly in the pot because I feel like it makes them dry. In other recipes online, I saw some where the eggs are cooked in butter and then the cream is added. It is up to you but I personally like keeping the eggs a bit raw and juicy. I find it more appetizing ;) 

Overall, not a diet friendly recipe but still very delicious. Be careful not to add too much mayonnaise since it is already very creamy!

Enjoy!