When I’m cooking at home, I have an innate, slightly neurotic need to always serve dishes to share. This is likely owing to some yet unpicked deep-rooted chef thing, but also because nothing quite compares with plonking down a beautiful big pan of something for everyone to fall upon like a flurry of gannets. This dish, with a stack of fluffy naan to mop up all the sauce, is absolutely the ticket. I first came across this combo in London a few years back and it’s gratifying to find it on a few menus back here now. Fair enough, too; clams and anything pig-related will always have me all out trotters-in-the-trough. ’Nduja (pronounced in-dou-ya) is a heady mix of pork and Calabrian chillies, that is prepared like a sausage and left to cure like salami. It is a cousin of the French andouille sausage, hence the name, but softer and much more assertive. You want some idea of the Calabrian temperament? This is it. Some versions are spicier than others. If you can’t find any, use soft chorizo instead, removing the outer casing. As far as the clams are concerned, go for the little Southern or the larger Cloudy Bay ones – both are gorgeous. View the recipe collection
