Jacob Kenedy. Photo: Howard Sooley
When the chef Jacob Kenedy opened his restaurant Bocca di Lupo in 2008, it was an instant hit and today it is still buzzing. Hidden in a Soho back street, it’s an Italian trattoria transplanted to London and serving up regional food. Kenedy, whose mother grew up in Rome, has said that his aim was always “to cook the food that I otherwise had to go to Italy for”.
Kenedy has an unusual career path. In brief: he studied at Cambridge, and almost became a biologist, a glassblower and then a DJ. But eventually it was his love of food that won out.
His third cookbook, Pasta Tricolore, published this week, is rooted in the idea that all pasta sauces are either green (pesto), white (bianco) or red (tomato) – an argument that he admits is “more convincing after a glass or two of vermentino”.
The recipe he shares here is from the Red chapter and is a choice that has been on the menu at Bocca since it opened, at a time when ’nduja, or Calabrian sausage, was quite an obscure ingredient. “It became a signature dish,” says Kenedy, “and remains among my prouder moments.”
Words by Jane Ferguson
Jacob’s ’nduja and orecchiette
Serves 4
Ingredients
2 Tropea onions, or smallish red onions
Fresh orecchiette, made with 400g semola di grano duro or 400g dried orecchiette
300g baby plum, datterino or cherry tomatoes, halved lengthways
4 tbsp very good extra virgin olive oil
150g ’nduja
100ml white wine
60ml double cream
100g rocket
90g pecorino Romano, grated
Sea salt
Method
Halve the onions and slice them 3mm thick lengthways, with the grain.
Just before you put fresh orecchiette on to boil (or just after, if they are dried), fry the onions and tomatoes in the oil in a wide pan over a very high heat for 5 mins, until softened and well browned in some areas.
Boil the pasta in abundant, well-salted water (10g per litre).
Crumble the ’nduja into the tomatoes, fry for 30 secs, then pour in the wine. Let it bubble for a few moments, then add the cream. Cook the sauce just until the cream has reddened.
Drain the orecchiette when a minute more al dente than you like to eat it (ie undercooked), reserving a little of their cooking water. Add them to the hot sauce with a splash of their cooking water and increase the heat to high. Stir continuously, until the pasta is al dente to your liking and the sauce thickly coating. You will probably need to add a little more of the cooking water as you go, but not so much that the sauce runs from the pasta.
Stir in the rocket until it just wilts. Taste for seasoning, then serve on warmed plates, or in a bowl to serve family-style, with plenty of pecorino to go round.
This is also good with: bucatini, cavatelli, calamarata/mezzi paccheri, fusilli, mafaldine, paccheri, penne, rigatoni/tortiglioni or spaghetti.
Pasta Tricolore: Recipes in Green, White and Red by Jacob Kenedy is published by Bloomsbury (RRP £18.99; buy it at a discount at the Nerve Bookshop)
Photography by Howard Sooley