Jordan and Sarah Macdonald, the team behind busy cafe and bistro Duo in Birkenhead, have brought their delicious take on Italian fare to Auckland’s North Shore with their latest venture Osteria Uno. Here they share the recipe for one of their popular dishes so you can recreate the magic at home this summer.
This dish is a knock-out and super easy to make. We’ve included the recipe for the fermented chilli sauce but you can substitute it with sriracha. You could also sub in any type of seafood (from frozen prawns to freshly caught fish). We love the bucatini as all the sauce goes into the holes of each piece of pasta but you can use any shape of pasta.
MUSSEL BUCATINI WITH FERMENTED CHILLI BUTTER RECIPE
Serves 4
400g fresh bucatini (or 300g dried pasta of your choice), cooked al dente
Prepped mussels and cooking liquor
150g chilli butter
1 small shallot, finely diced
1 clove garlic, thinly sliced
Olive oil
Parmesan, to finish
Lemon zest and juice
Fermented chilli butter
130g soft unsalted butter
1½ Tbsp lacto fermented chilli sauce (see recipe below, or substitute for sriracha)
Steamed mussels
1kg fresh mussels
100ml white wine (a crisp sauvignon blanc works well)
- To make the fermented chilli butter: In a food processor combine the butter and chilli sauce until combined. Give it a taste, if it’s too spicy add more butter.
- To make the steamed mussels: Heat a large pot with a lid until it’s screaming hot, add the mussels and then the wine and cover it with the lid. Keep an eye on the pot giving it a shake every minute or so. Remove the mussels with tongs as they start to open. Reserve the cooking liquor.
- Leave the mussels to cool for 5-10 minutes, remove the beards and slice them in half. If not using straight away these can be kept in the cooking liquor in the fridge for a day or two.
- To make the final dish: Sweat off the shallot and garlic in a couple of tablespoons of oil until translucent. Add 150ml of mussel cooking liquor and the fermented chilli butter and emulsify them together.
- Add the mussels to the pan to warm through then add the cooked pasta and cook it out for another minute tossing the pasta and sauce to emulsify everything together. Taste and add a squeeze of lemon and adjust the seasoning.
- Divide evenly on to four dishes, microplane lemon zest and parmesan on top.
LACTO FERMENTED CHILLI SAUCE
Makes 1 jar
200g red chillies, stalks removed
1 red capsicum, skin charred and peeled
50g sea salt dissolved in 1L water
- Add the chillies and capsicum to a large sterilised 1 litre mason jar along with the brine — this should fill the jar to the brim. Leave to ferment at room temperature for a week and a half. It should start to bubble after a few days, which is how you know it’s fermenting.
- Open the lid to allow the built-up gas to escape every two days.
- Once fermented, strain the contents of the jar but reserve the liquid.
- Blitz the chillies and capsicum in a food processor until roughly chopped, adding 50ml-100ml of the fermenting liquor to get it going, blitz to a smooth sauce. This will last in the fridge for two months.
