🍅 Malloreddus alla campidanese

Malloreddus alla campidanese is a Sardinian first course: small ridged malloreddus with a thick tomato sauce of fresh sausage and saffron, finished with grated aged pecorino. The Accademia Italiana della Cucina lists it as 'gnocchetti alla campidanese' in the style of the Campidano di Cagliari; in Sardinian the dish is called malloreddus a sa campidanesa.

In the Accademia's recipe for six, the dough is made from 500 g of durum wheat semolina, lukewarm salted water and a pinch of saffron. First a firm dough is worked in a bowl (xivedda), then it is rolled out and folded over and over until soft; one fifth is kneaded with saffron. After resting for more than an hour, the dough is rolled into ropes half a centimetre thick, cut into 1.5 cm pieces and rolled with the thumb over a rush tool called su ciuliri, which gives the ridges. The malloreddus are dried for three days, ideally in the sun, and boiled moderately al dente.

For the sauce, 300 g of Campidano sausage in chunks is browned in 1 dl of extra virgin olive oil and set aside. A crushed garlic clove and a small chopped onion are softened in the fat, the garlic is removed, and 1 kg of tomato passata or fresh tomatoes is added and simmered until thick; bay leaf, three basil leaves and saffron go in at the end, followed by the sausage. The cooked malloreddus are tossed with the sauce and covered generously with 120 g of grated aged Sardinian pecorino.

In its recipe for the sauce alone (bagna a sa campidanesa) the Accademia recommends saffron from San Gavino Monreale or Turri and notes that it also dresses other local semolina pastas, such as short maccarones and lorighittas.