Whenever my friend Masae calls me from the Japanese market, it’s usually to tell me that “there’s uni at the market today!” Which is then my cue to say, “would you like uni pasta tonight?” The Japanese supermarkets here sell sushi grade uni or sea urchin, and this spiny echinoderm, a relative of the sea cucumber and starfish is a delicacy for some and revolting to others. For those of you who belong to the latter category, you may want to skip this one. And for the more adventurous, if you’ve never had it, you eat the orange lobes inside the sea urchin which many people mistakenly believe is the roe or eggs but actually are their reproductive bits. Yes, we’re eating their gonads. Although, confusingly, these bright orange non-egg lobes or ‘tongues’ as they are often called are described as roe or coral. Named as such, I suppose, because the thought of eating roe (eggs) is more palatable than consuming raw lobes that excrete reproductive hormones. Really, it’s best not to think about it. I did wonder though, when did we start eating these spiny creatures? In Japan uni first appears in literature around 713, quite a while back. But then, sea urchin shells were discovered in the ruins of Pompeii, which means that there were some crazy folks eating them 2500 years ago.

Sea urchin is popular in Japan and considered a delicacy but not as an aphrodisiac as some people believe. Besides Japan, sea urchin is consumed in the Mediterranean countries and popular in places like Sicily where we visited (woohoo). Here in North America, it wasn’t that popular until a few years ago when an article came out declaring sea urchin as the ‘foie gras of the sea’. Once that article hit, the demand went UP and the price went way UP and became difficult to find.  There are countries like Russia, Chile, Korea, US and Mexico that fish and export them. Sushi restaurants in the US often have several types of uni that were caught in different countries, usually Russia, US, Mexico and Japan. The species are different and the flavours (and the pricing) vary. You could do what we do sometimes when we’re at a sushi restaurant that has more than one type, a taste test of the various unis.

One of the more popular and exquisite sea urchin pasta recipes is by Eric Ripert, the chef and part owner of Le Bernardin in New York. His version is very decadent, a half cup of butter to equal amount of sea urchin and there’s a generous dollop of caviar involved. I’ve made an adjusted version of his pasta in the past (which was delicious), and if you are interested, you can google it and find the recipe online.  The Italian sea urchin pasta recipes, ‘pasta ai ricci di mare’, may have tomatoes and most often have garlic. If you are making it at home, be careful to not overwhelm the flavour of the sea urchin with too much garlic. That would be a true tragedy. Mine is simple. I made up a recipe to satisfy Madame Masae’s never ending craving for uni pasta.

My Uni (Sea Urchin) Pasta

Ingredients: Serves: 2

6 oz spaghetti

2 sea urchin flats (3.5oz)

A bit of butter

2 tablespoon cream or half and half

2 tablespoon pasta water

½ tablespoon soy sauce

Nori, shiso leaves, chives or basil leaves slivered for garnish

Method:

Boil pasta according to instructions.

While the pasta is cooking, reserve two tongues of uni for garnish and smash the rest in a large bowl. Add the cream, soy sauce, and butter and mix.

Once the pasta is al dente toss it in the sauce and make sure the sauce coats the pasta, add pasta water and toss again.

Add more pasta water if necessary and garnish with thinly sliced shiso, nori or basil.

Source: Yuko’s Table

Prep Time: 5 minutes Cook time: 10 minutes Total Time: 15 minutes