Nduja and How to Use it
Is Nduja changing the cooking game? It absolutely is!
This trending, spreadable salami really has the power to change the quality of a meal. A decade ago, it was quite hard to get your hands on nduja, now thankfully many suppliers and artisan makers start distributing that heavenly, buttery delicacy.
Nduja is a soft, buttery spreadable pork mince that can be made as spicy as you want as the traditional recipe is made with Calabrian chilies, or spicy sweet if you decide to mix it up with some good old honey. It first originated in Spilinga, Italy and is now taking over the UK (finally!). In all simplicity, nduja is when you take the fatty parts of the pork, blend it all together, season it, stuff it into a casting like you would with a sausage or salami and ferment it in a warm environment. Fermentation can take from 12 to 36 hours. Then, the fermented meat is hanged to age for a long period of time. Depending on the size of the nduja, aging periods take between 4 weeks to 7 months.
Because of its fatty content and Calabrian chilies, the salami becomes a soft, bright red paste-like spread that can be then used in so many dishes and recipes. You can enjoy nduja on toast, throw it in pastas, pizzas and pies, use it in stews, sauté it with greens, cook it with legumes, and basically use it in almost every other dish. Because of its savoury kick it infuses an entire dish with its richness and aroma. It has its own signature texture that’s different to your usual charcuterie, but oh my is it worth a try!
Explore small-batch artisans that make their own Nduja by hand, like The Real Cure down in Dorset who uses free range British pork to make his unique Dorset nduja.
Try L’incontro Calabrian spicy nduja made from fine grained pork in Harlow, or Vorrei who also makes organic free range nduja using meat from black pigs ethically reared in the wild in Calabria, southern Italy. For a local feel, try award winning cured meats maker SaltPig Curing and his Cotswold nduja which is made using locally grown chillies in the Cotswolds!
What nduja dish will you be cooking this week?
Visit the charcuterie page to find a wide range of other meaty options! What goes great with charcuterie? That's right cheese, please meet 5 British Cheesemakers who all make amazing cheeses!
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