Nduja Spaghettini

*Post by Angela.

One of the most important things on our to-do list in San Francisco on our most recent trip was to hit up  Boccalone in the Ferry Building for their "meat cone." Which we (more specifically, Mark) accomplished. But while there, we were seduced by the gorgeous meat goodies surrounding us. We walked out with some deliciously decadent lardo, a package of head cheese, and finally a log of nduja ("en-doo-ya") a spicy spreadable salami, which came highly recommended by San Francisco Dining Divinity @thedapperdiner.

I've never had any experience with nduja, so I headed over to Boccalone's website, which had this relatively simple recipe for nduja spahettini. 

List of ingredients:

• 2 small bunches broccolini, trimmed and cut into 1 1/2 inch pieces
• 1 lb dried spaghettini
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling (about a tbsp)
• 8 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
• 2 large shallots, minced (the original recipe calls for 1 red onion, but I HATE red onion)
• 4 oz nduja (about half of our log)
• Zest of 1 lemon
• Juice of 1 lemon
• Salt and pepper to taste

First, I added about an inch of water to a large pot, brought it to a boil, added the broccolini, and covered. I cooked just 3-4 minutes, until the broccolini was crisp-tender. With a slotted spoon, I removed the greens to a bowl.

Leaving the broccolini cooking water in the pot, I added more water and brought it to a boil, then threw in the spaghettini. In the meanwhile, in a large skillet, I heated the olive oil over medium heat and cooked the garlic and shallot for about 5 minutes, until soft (below, left). Then I crumbled the nduja into the pot and stirred, cooking for about 4-5 minutes. And, like magic, the meat just sort of melted into the other ingredients (below, right).

I added the broccolini pieces to the meat/shallot/garlic mixture then grated the lemon zest over top and mixed well so the meat "sauce" covered all the greens.

Finally, I added the cooked and drained spaghettini to the mix, tossed, then seasoned and drizzled with some olive oil and the lemon juice. We served the spaghettini alongside some crusty bread, and put the Boccalone lardo (below, left) purchase to good use by trying to replicate the delicious lardo pestato (below, right) that we loved from Los Angeles' Sotto.

When the bread came out of the oven, it had already soaked up lots of glorious fat from the lardo. While the shavings of lardo remained intact on our version, I recall Sotto's lardo being completely melted and absorbed into the crusty bread. The discrepancy may or may not have something to do with Sotto shaving their lardo thinner or just having a 1000-degree oven. Paired with the bread, the result was a wonderfully salty, subtlely spicy and simple dish (below) that filled both of us up. Next time I'm in San Francisco, I'm going to make it a point to buy at least 2 logs of nduja, one to make the nduja bruschetta posted on their site, half of one to make this again, and then I can just straight up eat the remaining half log.