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In Southern Italy’s Calabria Region the town of Spilinga barely makes the map, appearing as just another two goat village in the middle of the Italian country-side. Outside the small village square, the hills are littered with century-old stone structures and an aqueduct that invites a small number of tourists to venture beyond the sparse collection of shops and cafes that dot the center of town. Although it’s a beautiful town, most tourists are not in Spilinga for the ancient buildings…they’ve come to sample N’duja.
Nduja, pronounced “en-DOO-ya”, is a speciality of Spilinga. In short, N’duja is a spicy, soft, spreadable salami. Traditional N’duja is made from a finely ground fatty pork and often contains the lesser-used portions of the pig like the meat around the face, skin, kidney, lung and other offal. In this mixture, salt and a healthy portion of roasted red peperocino chili peppers are added to give the sausage its color and signature heat. This fiery mixture is then stuffed into a natural intestine casing, shaped with a net of twine, lightly smoked and hung to cure for several months depending on the recipe. The end result is something unlike anything you’ve tasted before. More contemporary varieties of N’duja use more common parts of the swine such as shoulder and belly but they lack unique texture and flavor found in Italy.
Foodies in the United States have taken kindly to N’duja as it’s now featured on the menus of Italian restaurants in larger cities throughout the country. The most common application of N’duja is spreading it on crusty bread as an appetizer. It can also be used as a pizza topping or blended into tomato sauce and tossed with pasta as in this recipe.
No matter how you use it though, N’duja adds a smokey, spicy dimension to any dish that you just can’t get from any other sausage. The closest comparable variety is Mexican chorizo, except the Mexican version isn’t spreadable and it’s not considered a ready-to-eat cured sausage.
N’duja has also made its way into fresh markets and specialty Italian stores in major metro areas like New York and Chicago. Perhaps the most commercial form of N’duja is produced by Chris Cosentino’s Boccalone artisan salumeria in San Francisco. Cosentino converted a small Portuguese sausage production facility in Oakland into a gourmet mecca for salted pig parts and he’s been spreading the good word of N’duja ever since. Although Boccalone does a great job with their product, it is believed to be a bit mainstream in flavor compared to the fiery and adventurous varieties made in Italy and by the charcuterie underground of home sausage-makers throughout the United States.
Regardless of where you get it or how it’s produced, the first time you experience N’duja you’ll want to explore it further pushing the boundaries of heat and texture to find one that suits you just right.
