pasta with anchovy sauce, wilted radicchio and an olive oil fried egg

So since we've entered the world of food blogging, Nathan and I have noticed that certain recipes seem to make the rounds, and are basically blogged to death. Today's entry is an example of that. Back in 2007, the New York Times Magazine published an article about a new Nancy Silverton cookbook, including her recipe for "Egg Pappardelle With Bagna Cauda, Wilted Radicchio and an Olive-Oil-Fried Egg." Googling the phrase comes up with over 300 hits, including blog posts that are still being published as recently as last month.

Despite its being super delicious, Nathan would have us neglect to mention this recipe entirely, as it is so thoroughly covered elsewhere. Luckily for you, I, on the other hand, am far too much of a completest to fail to mention it.

A couple of weeks ago, I was feeling really down about the loud bar beneath our apartment and the prospect of moving up to a 5th floor unit with fake wood floors and smaller bedrooms. Since then, Laura and I have moved and it's actually not that bad, the extra stairs, fake floors, small closets and ridiculous light switch placement aside. The larger living room more than makes up for the smaller bedrooms, and the high ceilings mean that we can fit a lot more in the kitchen cabinets. However, on that particular day, I was pretty inconsolable about the whole state of affairs— until Nathan made me this for dinner.

This dish has a fair number of components, but everything comes together delightfully. You start out by sauteing anchovies and garlic over low heat. Since I wasn't cooking, I didn't personally witness this, but supposedly the hairy little buggers completely melt away into the olive oil. I can however attest to the fact that this bagna cauda is a surprisingly un-fishy sauce. Nathan boiled some linguini and then cooked it a minute or two longer in the oil with chopped radicchio and parsley, lemon juice and lemon zest. Then he fried two eggs in super hot olive oil and put them on top of each serving of pasta. They cooked super fast and were really crispy on the bottom, with awesomely runny yolks that melded with the pasta to make an even better sauce. Served with plenty of parmesan cheese and seasoned with salt and pepper, this was a really delicious meal, and totally deserving of its great reputation among the food blogging set. It also adapts really well to a gluten free diet if you have the right kind of pasta!

The recipe says this serves four, but that's probably only if you're serving this as one of multiple courses. As the sole dish, this was just enough to feed Nathan and me, without any leftovers. We thoroughly enjoyed every bite, and it really lifted my spirits on a particularly bad day.

UPDATE 6/5: Now we've got photos!