If you have a little leftover ‘nduja, then this is the dish for you!! It makes a delicous main for two, or starter for 4. Masterminded by Jacob Kenedy of Bocca di Lupo.
Wine Suggestion: This dish needs a medium bodied red fruited wine with a lick of acidity like the Morisfarms Mandriolo from the Tuscan coast. Fruit-forward cherry and raspberry flavours which come from the Sangiovese which is tied together with a touch of Cabernet and Petit Verdot.
Orecchiette with ‘nduja – serves 2 (or 4 as a starter)
- 200g dried orecchiette (if you can make or get fresh then go for that but dried works pretty good)
- 1 red onion, sliced
- 120g cherry tomatoes, quartered
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 100g ‘nduja (a bit less will be fine)
- 50ml white wine
- 80ml double cream
- 50g rocket, very roughtly chopped
- freshly grated Pecorino Romano, to serve (we used Parmesan – sorry Jacob!)
Get your orecchiette on to boil in lots of very salty water. Start making the sauce when there’s about 10 minutes to go.
Fry the onion and tomatoes over a high heat for about 3 minutes, you want them softened and lightly browned. Add the ‘nduja, break it up and fry for 30 seconds, then add the wine and a small ladleful of water from the pasta pot. Bubble briefly, then add the cream. Taste and season with some salt.
Keep cooking the sauce until thickend and not watery, then add the drained pasta (still a bit wet) and the rocket. Cook until the rocket is wilted and the pasta is coated in the glossy sauce. Serve with grated cheese on top.
(Original recipe from Bocca Cookbook by Jacob Kennedy, Bloomsbury, 2011.)
Jono & Jules do food & wine 
Cream and parmesan – and everything else from Puglia and Calabria? Hmm. It looks an interesting combo, though, and never say never! Orecchiette are fun to make (fun, that is, once you’ve acquired the knack of forming the shape with the thumb of one hand in the cupped palm of the other). There is a very clear recipe and method in Hazan’s ‘Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking’, although I reverse her flour blend proportions to favour the hard over soft. There’s probably not 1 in 100 people who would make fresh pasta from durum wheat semolina, but there’s a subtle difference in the mouthfeel when the pasta is cooked fresh from a semi-dried state, and anyway, I bake Pugliese bread regularly and so have the flour on hand.