hey everyone welcome to Pai's kitchen a couple of weeks ago I went to an Italian Japanese fusion
restaurant and I had a pasta dish that I instantly fell in love with and I was determined to recreate
it and share it with you guys it was spaghetti with a moussaka cream sauce and misako if you
don't know it is capelin Roe so the little fish roe that are outside of your sushi sometimes yep
these little guys and you can get them quite easily at a Japanese grocery store okay they
come in a pack like this for my store and it's a really simple pasta super delicious let's get
started so the first thing I'm gonna make is a dashi and dashi is the Japanese broth that
is a base for so many different dishes including your miso soup so I am making katsu dashi which is
simply Katsuobushi which is dried bonito flakes really really great smoky flavor steeped in hot
water for about ten minutes or so basically do this first get your ingredients ready by the
time you're ready to use it it'll be ready for you now the sauce very simple I've got here some
Japanese mayonnaise and Japanese mayonnaise you smell it and it's like yep I recognized
that in my California roll or my sushi of some sort it comes in a bag like this Kewpie with a
little child very cute and it's a bottle in a bag interesting packaging but make sure you've got
the Japanese the original kewpie because I think that tastes the best there are lots of you know
copycat ones out there and this is just going to give the sauce nice richness and also that
distinctive Japanese Mayo flavor so to this I'm going to add some cream this is whipping cream
I'm just going to stir it in there we go a little bit of soy sauce and I'm using Japanese soy sauce
here alright so now the misako goes in so I just want to give you one last look at the little eggs
here they are smaller than two Beco so tobiko is another kind of fish eggs that are out there
different kinds of fish and I don't know if it's substitute suitable for this dish it probably is
it just I haven't personally tried it mildly salty it's got sort of a an ocean flavor it's going to
give a nice color to the sauce as well time for the dashi roughly strain out about a quarter
cup trying my best to not get the fish flakes in there and that also goes into my sauce oh I just
love that smell that's the sauce how skinful is that and now I just got to cut my vegetables and
who are ready to assemble so vegetables I've got crimini mushrooms button mushrooms but the brown
ones cuz the brown ones are prettier just thinly sliced like that and also some asparagus and I'm
just following exactly what the restaurant uses here just because I thought it worked out really
well you can change up the vegetables if you'd like ooh I almost forgot one thing in the sauce
whoa that was close mirin so this is mirin which is a Japanese sweet cooking wine and I just like
to add a touch of it because there's a lot of salty and I'm also going to add some lemon so a
little balancing sweetness if you can't find Meera you don't want to get a whole bottle
just do a pinch of sugar all right I am using spaghetti for this and if you've seen my past
episode you know that I always go for pasta with a matte rough surface okay that roughness is going
to help the pasta hold on to the sauce which is nice for this particular sauce because it's quite
light okay so I'm going to drop the pasta in my boiling salted water right before I'm starting
the sauce I set the timer for one minute less than what the package says okay because I want
the pasta to finish cooking in the sauce a little oil and I want the mushrooms to get some browning
so I'm just gonna lay them flat not touch them for a while got some browning around the edges
so I'm going to lift them now the mushrooms like to like curl up so it can be hard to get browning
on the first side I find give that a few more seconds so once you see the mushroom starting
to look a bit like they're wet that's your cue for asparagus and I'm just gonna season them just with
a splash of soy sauce there we go Lou is getting smoky here okay that looks perfect I'm going to
turn that off for now just so the pan cool sound a little bit because the next thing I'm going to
do is I'm going to add the sauce and right now my pan is smoking hot as you can see so I don't want
the sauce to just instantly evaporate this is what happens when you cook with this portable
soap it is insanely powerful so now I'm going to pour my sauce mixture in look at that color so
pretty and we'll turn my heat back on and then I'm going to let this sauce reduce slightly and allow
the mushrooms and the asparagus to absorb some of that sauce flavor and now I'm going to turn
the heat off the sauce has been reducing for maybe just 30 seconds you don't need a lot okay I've got
three more minutes to go and then when my pastas ready it goes in here and we're almost done yay so
my pasta who just finished I'm going to turn this back on so I pasta should be slightly undercooked
right now so it's going to go straight into the sauce and I'm only making one portion here and
then it looks really soupy now but remember the pasta still got to cook a little bit and it'll
slowly absorb all that liquid mm-hmm you want to turn this off when it still looks too wet because
it always looks like there's more liquid now by the time you go to plate it and everything it
cools down it's not going to have as much liquid as you think so I'm gonna finish it off with a
quick squeeze of lemon juice just to freshen and brighten it up cuz there's a lot of richness and
creaminess in here right and that's it it's time to play how easy was that all right look at this
beautiful pasta oh look at that and see there's not actually that much sauce right I think the
bubbling always tricks you in thinking that there's or sauce often there actually is that
looks so good now I'm going to add some freshness with some herbs I've got here some shiso which
is a Japanese herb it's a very distinctive pace I can't really describe it to you it's herbaceous a
little cooling and minty if you don't have it just put in some green onions when you weren't looking
I went and fried up an egg at the restaurant where I had this dish they also make a sunny-side-up egg
and optional topping and I think it goes so well together it's perfect because now there's protein
and this is a must-have you must have some nutty or Japanese seaweed and I got one that's finally
finally julienne because I think it's just so pretty go so well with this sauce it makes it
that much more Japanese and look how beautiful that is and a little extra misako on top just you
know so we know what's inside and that is it time to eat breaking the yolk is always my favorite
part you want to just toss everything together oh that's smell oh it's got the most iconic Lee
Japanese flavors in there I can't really describe it to you but if you taste it you'll know what I
mean mmm the dashi and the moussaka combined to give sort of like an ocean you flavor but it's
mild it's not it's not fishy like Thai fish sauce might be creamy super creamy yet it's
quite light it's not heavy because of that lemon juice that we squeezed at the end and oh my god
the pasta is perfectly al dente it is just so good so the recipe will actually now be on PI's
kitchen comm I have launched a whole separate website so that if you want Thai food you can
go to hot pie kitchen if you want non Thai food pies kitchen will have its own website now so you
can go and check that out and please subscribe if you haven't done so and send me a photo on
Facebook Twitter or Instagram and I will see you next time for your next it's just expenditure