tagliatelle al granchio e l'nduja


tagliatelle with crab and 'nduja
A few years ago a cream-based recipe for crab and 'nduja seemed to be everywhere - it had n'duja stirred into cream to lessen the heat. If you've read some of my other recipes with 'nduja you'll know that I question the logic of stirring 'nduja into other ingredients - most varieties of 'nduja lose a lot of their unique, smoky flavour when you do that... I normally say that if you just want to add heat, there are cheaper ways of doing it than using 'nduja - even using hot, smked paprika will deliver a virtually identical flavour at a fration of the cost.
In this recipe however we're using 'nduja but we're going to attempt to keep those smokey pig flavours by simply drizzling it on the plated pasta, like a kind of hot sauce dressing. Obviously this is going to give you a much hotter tasting pasta, so bear that in mind of you have limited tolerance for spicy foods!
Incidentally, it's pronounced "ANN-DOO-YA", or "LANN-DOO-YA" if you're including the article.
WHAT YOU'LL NEED TO DO
(scroll down for the full method)
prepare the ingredients
make the tomato sauce
cook the garlic
boil the pasta
warm the crab
melt the 'nduja
combine sauce and pasta
add crab, combine
drizzle each portion with 'nduja

tagliatelle with crab and 'nduja
INGREDIENTS
FOR FOUR PEOPLE
approx. 300g crab meat
400g tomato polpa (Mutti)
2 garlic cloves
4 anchovy fillets
fresh parsley
white wine
1 tblspn butter
‘nduja
parmesan/pecorino
PASTA
400g dry egg tagliatelle (Rummo No. 132)
MANTECATURA (?)
none

METHOD
Start by making a basic marinara-type sauce with polpa, crushed garlic and EVO, and let it reduce down to quite a dry, sloppy and clumpy sauce, then set it aside. Put the pasta water in to boil. Crush another garlic clove and fry it gently with the chopped up anchovy fillets, some EVO and a little white wine, until the anchovies break down and ‘melt’ into a kind of a sauce.
Start cooking the pasta. Add the crab meat to the anchovies and garlic mix and warm it up on a medium heat, until it’s thoroughly heated and piping hot. Add some pasta water and a little EVO if it dries out too much. Add a teaspoon of butter and allow it to melt into the fish.

While that’s happening, in a separate, small frying pan, gently warm a tablespoonful (or as much as you like) of ‘nduja until it melts, together with a couple of tablespoonfuls of pasta water. Set it aside. When the pasta’s cooked, add it to the tomato sauce in a parge pasta pan and toss, with a little pasta cooking water, until it’s fully coated. Throw in the crab meat and toss until evenly distributed and serve immediately, drizzling some of the ‘nduja ‘sauce’ on the top of each portion.
NUTRITION per serving
KCAL: we're working on it!
Fat (g): TBC
Sat Fat (g): TBC
Carb (g): TBC
Sug (g): TBC
Fibre(g): TBC
Prot (g): TBC
Salt (g): TBC
