Nduja ≠ Andouille: BebBooCher

As I just wrote in the comments section of "Last Christmas...", Andouille (ahn-do'wee...that's how us Cajuns say it anyway) is a pork sausage that is smoked (very smokey) and seasoned with garlic and cracked pepper, among other things....varies here to there. Really good andouille is smoked over sugar cane and pecan wood. You can see the fat and meat, so it's a coarse sausage.  Sometimes it can be spicey to "fureners", but not by Louisiana's standards.

While living in Florence, I got the hankerin' for some good slow-cooked chicken gumbo, and it's not truly gumbo without andouille.  A few months before I had made turkey gumbo with the leftovers from Thanksgiving, but the pancetta affumicato (smoked) with extra garlic didn't quite get the flavor right, so when a friend of ours suggested that we may have found the Italian alternative I was eager to find it! She told me that Nduja just might do the trick...

According to Wikipedia,

Nduja is a creamy and extremely spicy pork sausage mainly produced in Calabria.

The name derives from the French andouille, a coarse-grained smoked meat made using pork, pepper, onions, wine, and seasonings. Nduja is made using meat from the head (minus the cheeks, which are used for guanciale), trimmings from various meat cuts, some clean skin, fatback, and roasted hot red peppers which give 'nduja its characteristic fiery taste. Nduja originates from the southern part of Calabria, namely from the small town of Spilinga and its neighborhood.

Now this sounded much spicier and softer than my andouille, but I was willing to give it a try and modify my recipe to get it closer to the way Moma makes it.

We looked all over the city center, and finally found a butcher with Nduja.  We brought home this soft, red potato shaped sausage.  The casing was thick so I decided to remove it.  The inside was extremely red and soft, and you could see and smell the hot pepper seeds.  I pulled a few chunks out and began to brown them in a pan with a little fat, just to test.  After a minute the air in the kitchen became unbearable! Our eyes were burning, we couldn't stop coughing and our lungs felt stuck.  I turn off the flame, opened the window (in February), and ran out of the kitchen.  After the hot smokey air had subsided enough, we returned to the stove where I convinced A. to take a pinch of the cooked Nduja to taste.  His mouth was on fire and he said it tasted like hot pepper...not sausage.

In conclusion, Nduja ≠ Andouille.  I wish I could say we used it appropriately, but it ended up in the back of the freezer and then in the garbage.  I am sure it can be a delicious addition to some Italian dish, I just never tried to find it!


Photo through Flickr Creative Commons, "Andouille..." by longrihui
Photo "Nduja" from wikipedia entry for Nduja