The Cooking and Cuisine of Sardinia

[Pontormo]

Kevin, I am so impressed!

Funny, I don't think I have ever made my own flatbreads of any kind.

(Sorry. I have been meaning to make three things I have all the ingredients for, but speaking of flatbreads, I've just had a craving for things stuffed into tortillas, avocados and am busy using up dried beans and grains; Syrian food tonight. Soon. Soon.)

Do you like the carte? Versatile or just an interesting experiment? The poof sounds like dramatic fun.

ETA: Klary, thanks for the bibliographic reference. Sounds great.

Edited June 28, 2006 by Pontormo (log)

[hathor]

Wow! Gorgeous food! I've been a slacker as well, house full of people and not much computer time.

Ling, your photos are beautiful and the food certainly looked delicous!!

Kevin, I've been dying to try and make the carta musica, but I didn't think mere mortals could pull it off, now I'll have to give it a shot. 10 sheets left? No problem. Just eat them! Our local Sardinian restaurant serves them warm, with a bit of olive oil and sprinkle of salt. Its the real reason I go there. I eat the whole basket immediately.

Its so damn hot here right now, all I want to do is lay on the floor next to the panting cat, and drink cold white Sardinian wine.

[divina]

Sorry I never have time to participate in these cookoffs!

I have had the carta di musica , also called Pane Carasau ,several ways: lining the serving dish that the porcedu, roasted suckling pig, is served on, then boiled and served with a tomato sauce and topped with a poached egg and grated pecorino cheese, called Pane Frattau. sort of reminds me of thin matzoh with the soaking techniques.

Judith.. got room for one more!

even my cats are panting!

[FoodMan]

Hey, busy people, where's the Sicily thread? I already have stuff to post.

[Kevin72]

Sorry, been out of town. I'll get my notes ready and start one in the next day or two here.

[hathor]

Judith.. got room for one more!

even my cats are panting!

←

There is ALWAYS room for you...and for the cats!

[Pontormo]

Klary's enthusiastic response to the swordfish impanate that Kevin made last year inspired me to thaw ground lamb I froze a month ago and catch the boat back to Sardinia.

Marlena De Blasi writes purple prose. Nonetheless she offered about the only recipes from this region that really appealed to me. In particular, there is a dough made with flour, cornmeal and a substantial amount of Pecorino, fattened with butter and moistened with egg and white wine. It's used to prepare a potato crostata flavored with mint and orange zest, passed over in favor of impanade di agnello alla Saverio di Nulvi which I truly hope shepherds do not carry to munch among their flocks at night.

Ms. De Blasi needs a superior tester, not just an editor who dresses only in black, wears sensible flats and no lipstick. After finding a pot with the required diameter and taking out my dough scraper with a ruler on its edge, I decided that 2 T of lamb would not exactly serve as a heaping portion in a pocket of dough that measures 6 inches across. I also was a bit liberal with other aspects of the recipe, adding a substantial amount of chopped onion to the garlic, sun-dried tomatoes, toasted fennel seeds, hot chili pepper (Vietnamese paste) and black cured olives.

They're good, the flavors of the savory filling especially. The pastry itself is disappointing even though I thought it clever to brush the impanade with the oil from the tomatoes. It seems too dry, heavy versus flaky and given all the assertive ingredients in the filling, I can't really taste all that cheese. The oil was simply absorbed during baking, so an egg wash might have been a better idea.

Edited July 17, 2006 by Pontormo (log)

[Ling]

^Egg wash...or heavy cream works too.

[Franci]

Delicious, robust, rustic.  The bread had a decidedly different texture than crepes, which you would worry would have had the same effect, but instead it lends a nice rough texture to the whole thing.  Now, what to do with those other ten sheets . . . .

←

This pane frattau looks odd to me. What's wrong with the traditional frattau that you decided not to go for it?

Edited July 17, 2006 by Franci (log)

[Franci]

Gorgeous Shaya! 

Mind taking a pic of that gnocci roller??

mike

←

Thanks Mike. Here is the roller. It was made by an Italian guy in town, but they are very common in Italy. Makes the process very easy. I recommend these gnocchis - I find them much easier to work with than the potato ones - although you seem to have mastered those on your first try!

←

That will work also for "garganelli" if you like to try.

Instead I really go for the eay way

[hathor]

Franci, how does that machine work? I mean, how do you get the pieces to curl up?

[Franci]

Franci, how does that machine work? I mean, how do you get the pieces to curl up?

←

Hi Hathor,

I took some pictures for a closer look

I think a lack of English vocabulary to properly describe it , but here you can see pretty clearly

On one side there is an handle that will move this metal piece that you see

As you can see the inner part is not smooth

the right side is for gnocchi sardi, the left one for cavatelli

The rope of dough will pass thourgh the 2 hard plastic cylinders and press againist the shape and it'll cut by the metal piece (i don't know how to call it )

I just made a little rope of dough for the demostration, so was not of the proper consistency, it was too soft, but just to show it: if you have the patience to open every cavatello you with end up with strascinati

Edited July 19, 2006 by Franci (log)

[hathor]

Thanks Franci!! I've been pondering that machine for a few days now! Any your Engish is far, far better than my Italian. What a cool machine...saves wear and tear on the fingertips.

[hathor]

Yesterday we went to the sheep farm for some more ricotta. This time, I went along with Jeff, just in case he needed a 'designated driver'! We got the ricotta, still steaming hot, and then after some chit chat, the cheese maker's wife asked us if we had ever tasted 'frue'. It was a small, dry cake of a cheese. No we hadn't, so we had to have some.

After being given instructions to cook it in a minestra, without salt, but with potatoes, we headed home. I looked up 'frue' in my Slow Food "Formaggi d'Italia" book, but the closest I came to something similar was "Casu axedu".

My first inclination was to make a potato dish, but my imagination was making something very complex with an unknown ingredient. So, I backed off, and made a very simple minestra of summer vegetables and potatoes, and grated the cheese on top of the soup. It reminded me of an unusually salty ricotta salata, but drier, and with a much lower melting temperature. It melted into the soup very, very quickly. It must be some sort of variation on ricotta salata. But, I have to say, for a simple, rustico dish, it was very satisfying on a warm summer night.

[hathor]

Remember hot island breezes, sunshine, long days melting into warm evenings?

No? Me either. It was -2F when I woke up this morning...and yesterday morning.

But, yesterday for lunch, we remembered Sardegna. I found a carefully wrapped and stored piece of Sardegian (sp?) bottarga that I'd brought back from Italy. The Sardegna stuff is much milder than anything I've tasted from Sicily or Calabria or Puglia.

So we had a simple angle hair pasta with chopped parsley, garlic, chili pepper and lots of bottarga. It just tasted great.

Now, if I only had some of that fresh sheep ricotta.....

[Kevin72]

Heads up: Sweet Myrtle and Bitter Honey: The Mediterranean Flavors of Sardinia, a Sardinian cookbook, will be published on October 23rd. This is by one of the two brothers who own the Sardinian restaurants Arcodoro and Pomodoro in Dallas and Houston.

[hathor]

Heads up: Sweet Myrtle and Bitter Honey: The Mediterranean Flavors of Sardinia, a Sardinian cookbook, will be published on October 23rd. This is by one of the two brothers who own the Sardinian restaurants Arcodoro and Pomodoro in Dallas and Houston.

←

What a lovely name for a book, evocative. I'm still yearning to get to Sardinia, but there never seems to be the time....

[FoodMan]

My most recent Italian cookbook acquisition is The Foods of Sicily, Sardinia and The smaller Islands by Giuliano Bugialli. So, last night's dinner was my first meal from the book (except for the Spinach). A Sardinian dinner...and lots of gratuitous photos

Linguini with Walnut sauce. The sauce is a pesto of walnuts, parsley, basil and mint. It also has a good amount of breadcrumbs that I think can be reduced significantly. Still pretty good and tasty dish.

Boned, Stuffed and rolled Sardinian chicken with a piquant sauce. The chicken if stuffed with parsley, pancetta and garlic. The sauce is quiet tangy and deliciouse made with oven-dried tomatoes (my homemade bastardization of sundried tomatoes), capers, garlic, parsley, vinegar and water. All in all, the dish looks lovely and tasted wonderful.

I also sauteed some mushrooms with spinach, raisins and almonds. This was not from any book. It seemed like a Sardinian/Sicilian combo to me. I toppedit with Pecorino and it was excellent.

And One more....

[hathor]

You still have basil!!

All we have left is this gnarly, scraggly, tough, end of the season, little bitty leaves.

I love the chicken dish, really beautiful. Chufi posted a great photo of some boned/rolled rabbit, next time I get to have dinner at home, I think this will be inspiration.

What do you think of the cookbook?

[FoodMan]

You still have basil!!

All we have left is this gnarly, scraggly, tough, end of the season, little bitty leaves.

I love the chicken dish, really beautiful.  Chufi posted a great photo of some boned/rolled rabbit, next time I get to have dinner at home, I think this will be inspiration.

What do you think of the cookbook?

←

Sure I have basil and lots of it. Remember I am in Houston, TX. I have two plants, one with the large wide leaves like the one you get at the store. The other is more peppery with smaller narrower leaves and they are both still nice and bushy and green.

These are the first recipes I cook from the book. Both are terrific. It's also a good book to leaf/read through and is full of useful information. The fact that every recipe title has reference to the origin (Sardinia, Alba, Pantelleria,...) is a big plus for me. I also like the pictures of not just the food, but the people and places. I think it's a good buy.