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Squid Ink Pasta with Shrimp, Nduja, and Tomato

A pasta dish featuring squid ink linguine, shrimp, nduja, and tomato sauce.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and squid work together. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 203 recipes mention both. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: wheat, shellfish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Also mentioned in the method: pasta

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Peel and devein shrimp, saving heads and/or shells.

  2. Finely chop shrimp; set aside.

  3. Heat 1 Tbsp. oil in a medium saucepan over medium-high and cook smashed garlic, stirring, until golden, about 1 minute. Add reserved shrimp heads and/or shells and cook, stirring, until bright pink, about 2 minutes.

  4. Add bay leaf and 2 cups water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until stock is slightly reduced and flavorful, 8–10 minutes.

  5. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve into a large bowl; discard solids.

Make the sauce

  1. Heat remaining 2 Tbsp. oil in a large skillet over medium-high. Add sliced garlic and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 1 minute.

  2. Remove skillet from heat and carefully add tomatoes and 1 cup stock (mixture may sputter). Return to heat and cook, stirring occasionally, until sauce is beginning to thicken, about 3 minutes.

  3. Add nduja, using a wooden spoon to work it into the sauce. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until flavors have melded, about 3 minutes.

  4. Stir in reserved shrimp and cook, stirring occasionally, until opaque, about 2 minutes.

Cook and serve

  1. Meanwhile, cook pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water, stirring occasionally, until very al dente (pasta will still be opaque and very firm in the center).

  2. Drain pasta, reserving 1½ cups pasta cooking liquid.

  3. Add pasta and 1 cup pasta cooking liquid to sauce and cook, tossing often and adding more cooking liquid to help finish cooking pasta, until pasta is al dente and sauce is thickened (but still saucy) and coats pasta, about 5 minutes. Add lemon juice and ¼ cup parsley; toss.

  4. Taste and season with salt and pepper.

  5. Serve pasta topped with more parsley.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Olive + squidtop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together203 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Olive + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,164 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,036 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,118 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Lemon + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Shrimp
Adds sweet, briny flavor; shells make a stock that deepens the sauce.
Nduja
Adds spicy, fatty, savory depth that melts into the tomato sauce.
Tomato passata
Forms the body of the sauce and adds acidity and sweetness.
Squid ink linguine
Provides the pasta base and dark color; starch helps bind the sauce.
Garlic
Adds aroma and savory flavor when cooked gently in oil.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Finishing the pasta in the sauce. Pasta should be pulled very al dente, since it keeps cooking in the sauce. Starchy cooking liquid emulsifies with the oil and tomato so the sauce coats the noodles rather than pooling.

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (shrimp, olive, garlic, tomato, squid, parsley, pepper):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Limeabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against shrimp, olive, garlic, tomato, squid, parsley, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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