Creamy Bucatini with Roasted Seaweed

I present to you what my family calls “gim pasta”: a simple, perfect, little black dress of a pantry dish featuring chewy bucatini, roasted seaweed, and cream. These noodles really speak for themselves, in large part because they remind me of the seaside flavors of a classic shrimp Alfredo, but without the meat. This is, perhaps more than any of the other gim dishes in this book, a blatant concretization of my mantra: Roasted seaweed is more than just snack. It’s a powerhouse ingredient.

Unbalanced

% Daily Values based on a 2,000 calorie diet

Step 1

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt it generously. Add the bucatini and cook until pliable, about half the time that the package instructions tell you is al dente. (So if it says cook the pasta for 10 minutes, cook it for 5 minutes.) Reserve 1 cup of the starchy pasta water, then drain the bucatini and return it to the pot.

Step 2

2. Add the cream, garlic, and about half of the reserved pasta water to the pasta (saving the rest of the water to thin out the sauce later if needed). Bring the sauce to a simmer over medium-high heat, stirring constantly until the sauce reduces by half and slicks the bucatini with garlicky cream, 4 to 5 minutes.

Step 3

3. Stir in the sesame oil and taste for seasoning. Add more salt if needed (the pasta should be nicely seasoned to bring out the seaweed’s natural salinity).

Step 4

4. Divide the pasta between two plates and finish with freshly ground black pepper, flaky sea salt, and the roasted seaweed snack, showered messily over the bucatini. Dust with gochugaru, if using.