Hi there! & Happy Wednesday…
Nduja is a salami like paste from Calabria in the south of Italy. Made from
the same cuts as slicing salami pork belly and shoulder. It contains local
chillies and lots of spices making it very hot. The type I get comes in a
sausage like log that you can squeeze out into a pan or spread on grilled bread
for an almost instant crostini. When you cook with Nduja it’s a bit like
anchovies in that it starts off in quite a solid form but as heat is applied it
softens into more of a paste.
At Christmas this year I made Nduja sausage rolls and lots of them as I
discovered that although delicious hot, they were even more delicious cold. It
was a bit like a hot salami sausage roll. I haven’t stopped cooking with it
since I made those sausage rolls at Christmas. I’ve been making pasta sauces,
pizza toppings and even baking it into bread. One of my favourite uses for it
though at the moment is in meatballs it gives them near instant fiery flavour
and the sauce there cooked in to. Below is a recipe for Nduja meatballs and
they are great for feeding a crowd as this particular recipe yields 40
meatballs.
