Colm O'Gorman: Ten-minute spaghetti with nduja, lemon and fennel

Ready in the time it takes to cook the pasta this really is fast food

This pasta goes from pot to plate in ten minutes

Pasta really is the ultimate comfort food, isn’t it? It can also be incredibly quick to make. Avoid readymade sauces though.

They never taste as good as the one you will make yourself and, honestly, you can make a fantastic pasta sauce from scratch in minutes.

This week’s recipe can be made in less than twenty minutes, and it only takes about ten to cook.

I came up with this dish one night recently when I was home alone and did not know what to cook.

Meals for one can be a challenge sometimes and I was not in the mood for spending much time in the kitchen.

This was one of those ‘whatever I have in the fridge’ recipes, made possible because as well as the kitchen staples I always have to hand, I also had some nduja in the fridge that I had bought at the weekend to make pizzas.

Nduja is a beautiful spicy, spreadable salami sausage from Calabria in the south of Italy.

It is a gorgeous ingredient, but if you cannot find any, you could swap it out for some thinly sliced or chopped chorizo.

I highly recommend the nduja though, it really is very special. I got mine in my local Supervalu so you should be able to find some locally easily enough.

A few tips on cooking pasta and making a great sauce. Firstly, use lots of water to cook your pasta. Get a good big pan of water and bring it to a fast boil.

Add a decent amount of salt, and then taste the water. It should be as salty as seawater, but, if you are going to use some of the pasta water to finish your sauce as I do with this dish, use a little less salt, and do not add any salt to your pasta sauce until you have added the water and then tasted the sauce. I have poisoned a few lovely pasta sauces in my time by forgetting that rule, so do bear it in mind.

This is a simple sauce to prepare, if you get your ingredients ready in advance you will be able to cook it up in the ten minutes it takes to cook the spaghetti. The tomatoes are the base for your sauce, so use good cherry tomatoes rather than large ones as they will give you a lovely sweet, intense flavour and hold a little of their shape.

I have made this dish both with cream cheese and without it. I like it with the cheese as it gives the sauce a lovely creamy depth which really works with the sharpness of the lemon and the spicy sausage.

If you are making this for the family, you might want to use a little less nduja as it is quite spicy, just adapt the recipe to your family's tastes. It is perhaps a little bit of a grown-up dish, but if your kids love spice as much as ours, everyone will love it.

Spaghetti with nduja, lemon and fennel

recipe by:Colm O'Gorman

This is a simple sauce to prepare, if you get your ingredients ready in advance you will be able to cook it up in the ten minutes it takes to cook the spaghetti

Servings

2

Preparation Time

 5 mins

Cooking Time

 10 mins

Total Time

 15 mins

Course

 Main

Ingredients

• 300g cherry tomatoes

• 2 tbsp olive oil

• 2 cloves of garlic

• 50g nduja

• 1 lemon

• 1 tsp fennel seeds

• 40g freshly grated Parmesan

• 2 tbsp cream cheese

• A handful of fresh basil

• 160-200g dried spaghetti

• Salt and ground black pepper

Method

1. Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil. While you are waiting for it to boil, cut the cherry tomatoes into halves, lightly toast the fennel seeds in a dry pan and peel and thinly slice the garlic cloves. Add the spaghetti to the pan of boiling water and cook it for eight to ten minutes, until it still has just a little bite. While it is cooking you can prepare the sauce. Grate half of the parmesan and set aside. You will use the rest just before serving. I use a vegetable peeler to shave the rest of the parmesan into curls which taste and look great on top of the finished dish. You can do that just before serving it up.

2. Heat a heavy based frying pan over a high heat, add the olive oil and when it is hot and shimmering, the chopped cherry tomatoes. Turn the heat down to medium and cook the tomatoes for three to four minutes until they soften and begin to break down just a little. Add the sliced garlic and cook it for another minute or two. Lightly crush the fennel seeds in a mortar and pestle or a spice grinder, and sir them in. Add the juice of the lemon and a good grind of black pepper. Pick about half of the basil leaves and set them aside. Chop the rest of the basil, including the stalks and stir the chopped herbs into the sauce. Cut up the nduja and add that to the pan. Stir it in, keeping the heat low, you just want to simmer the sauce so that the nduja cooks down.

3. By now your spaghetti should be almost cooked, so dip a mug into the pan and scoop out some of the starchy pasta water and set it aside.

4. Add the cream cheese to the sauce and stir until it is well combined. Check your pasta now, it should be ready. Drain it and return it to the pan. Add a little splash of olive oil and toss the pasta to stop it getting sticky. Add the grated parmesan cheese to the sauce, stir it in and if it is getting as little too thick, add some of the reserved pasta water to the pan, stirring it in until you get the correct consistency. Taste the sauce and now add more salt if needed. Toss the spaghetti in the sauce and serve it up on pasta bowls or plates, with the rest of the basil leaves and the parmesan shavings scattered on top.