The Cooking and Cuisine of Sardinia

[hathor]

NYCMike, I was wondering where you were as well. I think you may be on to something with the food of sustenance thing, or maybe because the basic preparations are what is commonly done all over Italy, and not specific to just Sardina?

Nathan: nice fregula!! And I'm so relieved to hear that I will most definetely live to be 100! Cannanau is a favorite house wine around here.

Pontormo: pheas-turkey? What an intriguing idea...but tough to pull off, let alone dig the pit. The ground is hard as a rock right now, I would need a back-hoe!

Last night I made "Culurgionis di Patate" from Maurizio Mazzon's book "The Il Fornaio Pasta Book". Its an American book, and I had some hesitation with figuring out what type of products he meant (the flour, the potato), so I went with some Tipo 0, as the pasta is just flour, water, and a bit of salt. Actually I stood around for awhile just looking at my scale and a liter measuring cup that I have trying to figure out how to translate measurements of 1/2 cup, until I rembered that mother had given me a set of US measuring cups. Thanks god.

The filling is roasted potato (I used a very floury potato), pecorino staginota, pecorina fresca and parmigina, butter and sage.

The recipe called for a basic tomato sauce, but I wanted something a little more refined so I made a quick sauce of slivered sweet onions, sage, and pomodorini strips in brown butter. They turned out really good....as in you need to watch out or you can eat way too many of them!

Here they are after being made, the cork is to help visualize the size, not because I was sipping away while making them!

And here they are on the plate. See. We practised portion control.

Oh, and one last bit of good luck. You know the swiss chard filled pasta that a bunch of you have been making? My neighbor gave me a batch of home made swiss chard filled cannelloni. Now, that is some very good luck!!

[FoodMan]

Absolutly lovely Hathor! They look perfect both raw and plated. The filling is still differen t that Mario's filling that I am hoping to get to this month. His is more along the sweet/sour onion and potato filling.

[Ling]

One thing we've mentioned here and in the short write-ups of the region would be perfect for adventurous meat-lovers, whether the Daddy-A Vancouver gang that did the pig roast at Deborah's (called "Porceddu" Arristito in Sardegna), or perhaps the Mistral crowd on their day off .

It's called pastu mistu, in which one animal is stuffed inside another, inside another.  This caught on during Napoleon's occupation of the island and became fagiano in cocotta: pheasant inside a turkey (yes, shades of turducken). 

←

Pheasant inside a turkey is perhaps do-able, but I don't know about the stuffings a bunch of animals inside a calf before roasting. That might be a little ambitious.

Nice job with the Culurgionis di Patate, hathor!

I am still thinking about a Sardinian dessert for Friday. So far, I've seen a lot of different fried fritter-type recipes. Could I do a tart or a cake instead...I'm not too comfortable deep-frying at home.

[Pontormo]

I am still thinking about a Sardinian dessert for Friday. So far, I've seen a lot of different fried fritter-type recipes. Could I do a tart or a cake instead...I'm not too comfortable deep-frying at home.

←

In Marlena de Blasi's book on Southern Italy, she includes the following:

Sospirus, or Lemon Sighs

Meringues made with almonds and sugar cubes (Ling: what's the virtue of chopping up sugar cubes instead of using regular sugar?) saturated with grappa

Golden Raisin Bread of Sant'Elena in Quartu

Made with honey, moscato and almonds, but served customarily with pheasant should you care to respond to the challenge

Sebadas Olienese

This sounds most promising--it's a baked version of the deep-fried pastry that caught your eye

Aranciata Nuorese

More of a candy; ingredients: 24 oranges , dark honey and almonds for 2 lbs.

There might be some more options on links at the beginning of this thread. I would be happy to email one before Thursday if you don't have access to the book.

Nathan A belated note of appreciation. I've also not been all interested in clams these days, not just due to heat spell, and I didn't want to cook my fregule in a tomato sauce. You've given me an idea. Photo looks great, too! Welcome back.

Now all we're missing is April who surely has basil in her garden should she care to return us to Liguria. I still haven't baked focaccia this year.

Hathor I am glad you have settled back in your beloved Umbria once more! The pasta is exquisite. Each looks like a stegosauros out in the field just before it rains.... (Not in the restrained, elegant plating, of course.)

[Ling]

Sospirus, or Lemon Sighs

Meringues made with almonds and sugar cubes (Ling: what's the virtue of chopping up sugar cubes instead of using regular sugar?) saturated with grappa

I don't know why chopped up sugar cubes would be better than granulated sugar for this particular recipe...perhaps she wants the sugar to be in small clumps for a certain "sandy" mouthfeel?

Golden Raisin Bread of Sant'Elena in Quartu

Made with honey, moscato and almonds, but served customarily with pheasant should you care to respond to the challenge

Whooo..that sounds good! I love meat and raisins or grapes...mmm.

Sebadas Olienese

This sounds most promising--it's a baked version of the deep-fried pastry that caught your eye

I'd love to take a look at this recipe if you have the time to scan it or type it out!

[Pontormo]

In the spirit of Hathor's new contribution to the Ligurian thread, I can tell you what not to do with freugla, although it is edible enough.

I had one last serving of Roman Easter ragu in the back of the freezer. Since fregula is both boiled like pasta and cooked with other ingredients in brothy preparation, I had an unfortunate "Aha!" moment.

I soaked additional porcini in the last of a bottle of Bordeaux (cf. thread on cooking from your pantry, so to speak), and when softened, added them, the strained porcini-wine and some chicken stock.

Then I dumped in the fregula.

Don't try this at home.

The liquids combined were not still more of an overly concentrated mushroom sauce than a broth, so it took too long for the packaged fregule to soften. By that point, it was a bit like making a risotto with breakfast cereal. I ate it. The salad was wonderful and there were cherries for dessert.

[annanstee]

Sospirus, or Lemon Sighs

Meringues made with almonds and sugar cubes (Ling: what's the virtue of chopping up sugar cubes instead of using regular sugar?) saturated with grappa

I don't know why chopped up sugar cubes would be better than granulated sugar for this particular recipe...perhaps she wants the sugar to be in small clumps for a certain "sandy" mouthfeel?

[

←

Is it an older recipe? My Mme St. Ange often will call for loaf sugar- or cube sugar. It used to be the formed sugar was made from a finer grain, but that is no longer the case. You could try a comparison between superfine and regular sugar and see if one works better than the other.

[hathor]

In the spirit of Hathor's new contribution to the Ligurian thread, I can tell you what not to do with freugla, although it is edible enough.

I had one last serving of Roman Easter ragu in the back of the freezer. Since fregula is both boiled like pasta and cooked with other ingredients in brothy preparation, I had an unfortunate "Aha!" moment.

I soaked additional porcini in the last of a bottle of Bordeaux (cf. thread on cooking from your pantry, so to speak), and when softened, added them, the strained porcini-wine and some chicken stock.

Then I dumped in the fregula.

Don't try this at home.

The liquids combined were not still more of an overly concentrated mushroom sauce than a broth, so it took too long for the packaged fregule to soften. By that point, it was a bit like making a risotto with breakfast cereal. I ate it. The salad was wonderful and there were cherries for dessert.

←

Just between us friends...."eeewww" Breakfast cereal risotto.....

[Kevin72]

Everything looks great everyone! I've been on vacation the past week and haven't been able to weigh in as much.

Welcome, Ling! Good luck on your meal tonight!

Pontormo, I've been astounded at how much liquid you need to cook fregula in and how much it absorbs. I made another dish last week of just fregula and tomato sauce and had probably 3 cups liquid for maybe 3/4 cup fregula and it sucked it all right up!

Mike, sorry about the frustratiions you've had this month, particularly since you wanted to reconnect with your heritage. I had a similar experience last year when I cooked from Abruzzo, and Hathor made much the same point to me that you've arrived at. Wait til Sicily, though, that should get you back on track!

[Ling]

Thanks for the welcome, Nathan. We had a few guests over for our Sardinian meal tonight. I don't think we had any Sardinian wine, but we had a some prosecco, moscato, and a bunch of New World wines.

Antipasti:

white truffle cream, balsamico, La Panzanella crostini

calamari stuffed with anchovies

Primo:

grilled scampi with saffron orecchiette

Secondo:

Sardinian braised rabbit, fava beans

Dolci:

Sebadas Olienese (basically a pastry filled with orange blossom-flavoured ricotta and marscapone, brushed with honey) served with figs poached in vin santo and honey, black pepper ricotta cream

[Pontormo]

Beautifully orchestrated menu, Ling & Henry, the stuffed calamari and dessert with the creative accompaniments to the pastry in particular.

You manage to demonstrate to us how a region that has not inspired much activity this month can nonetheless inspire a wonderful meal. Any comments about the dishes you served?

* * *

And, yes, Kevin, regarding the fregule's absorption of liquid. I prepared more last night for a tomatoey chicken dish and cooked as if it were pasta, it was fine. I imagine freshly prepared fregula would be more interesting.

[Pontormo]

Sospirus, or Lemon Sighs

Meringues made with almonds and sugar cubes...saturated with grappa

...

Is it an older recipe? My Mme St. Ange often will call for loaf sugar- or cube sugar. It used to be the formed sugar was made from a finer grain, but that is no longer the case. You could try a comparison between superfine and regular sugar and see if one works better than the other.

←

Kevin is more familiar with Marlena de Blasi as a cookbook author than I am, but when she alters regional dishes, she does it in a way that seems different from others. Instead of "modernizing" recipes to compensate for things English-speaking home cooks may not have, she seems to feel more free to be creative while still maintaining the integrity of the traditional dish.

Presumably all of her recipes reflect long-established traditions, so the era in which this particular confection first emerged may indeed explain why sugar cubes are specified. However, Ling's comment about a desirable texture makes sense, especially since any granular feel left in the meringues would taste of the grappa.

[Ling]

Beautifully orchestrated menu, Ling & Henry, the stuffed calamari and dessert with the creative accompaniments to the pastry in particular. 

You manage to demonstrate to us how a region that has not inspired much activity this month can nonetheless inspire a wonderful meal.  Any comments about the dishes you served?

←

Henry's favourite things of the evening were the stuffed calamari, the sauce for the braised rabbit, and the dessert. Mine was probably the dessert. Honestly, I thought everything we cooked last night was just good...nothing blew me away. I thought the dessert was probably the best of the dishes we served. We changed around the rabbit recipe quite a bit, adding mirepoix, stock, a huge end of Salumi lamb prosciutto, and lots of wine to the braise. The sauce was still quite piquant when it was finished reducing--I can't imagine how sour it would've been without the bottle of wine and liter of stock we added to te recipe! We even rounded out the strained, reduced sauce with lots of cream and butter. So the resulting sauce was good, but a far cry from the original recipe (rather spartan, just basically water, red wine vinegar, an onion, parsley and some capers).

We didn't use a recipe for the orecchiette dish, but wanted to use saffron somewhere, since we went to three places yesterday to check for bottarga and couldn't find any. I was pretty determined to have saffron, bottarga, and ricotta somewhere in our menu, but alas we had to settle for 2 out of 3.

Henry wanted to find maggot cheese, but...

The dessert was great and very different from anything I've ever made. Everyone seemed to like it a lot. However, I thought it was much better with the fig and the ricotta cream components on the side....alone, the Sebadas Olienese was good, but quite plain. I did modify the recipe a bit for the pastry and the filling as well. I added a bit of extra cream to the dough as it was quite dry as written, and the filling was more marscapone than ricotta because I ran out of ricotta. Also, the filling with all that orange blossom water, lemon, and orange zest was a bit too strong, so I balanced it out by adding the extra cheese and rounded out the taste with some honey.

The black pepper ricotta cream is based loosely on a Mario Batali recipe...I added a tiny bit of almond extract and nutmeg, and about twice as much black pepper as he calls for. I really liked the figs poached in vin santo and honey...after the dinner party, we dropped off an extra dessert for the chef at Mistral and I made him a quick fig compote with black pepper, orange juice, and moscato because we were out of fresh figs.

Edited June 24, 2006 by Ling (log)

[Kevin72]

Fantastic pics, Ling . . . looks like we've got another ace food photographer joining in!

I've cooked something similar to the original recipe for the rabbit before and it wasn't too sour at all . . . alot of it gets reduced away and is mediated by the meat. Try it as-is sometime.

And, grilled cotechino?

[Kevin72]

Kevin is more familiar with Marlena de Blasi as a cookbook author than I am, but when she alters regional dishes, she does it in a way that seems different from others.  Instead of "modernizing" recipes to compensate for things English-speaking home cooks may not have, she seems to feel more free to be creative while still maintaining the integrity of the traditional dish. 

Presumably all of her recipes reflect long-established traditions, so the era in which this particular confection first emerged may indeed explain why sugar cubes are specified.  However, Ling's comment about a desirable texture makes sense, especially since any granular feel left in the meringues would taste of the grappa.

←

That's pretty much it; she often improvises dishes she's had or seen prepared, and usually explains why (a method I'm no stranger to myself). But in her Northern cookbook, her recipe for ragu Bolognese includes porcini and balsamic vinegar. Urk.

[Kevin72]

Sardinian-inspired experimentation continues.

For Friday night’s primo, I used the frozen leftover malloreddus from the beginning of the month to make a sweet pepper and squid ragu:

Red bell peppers are slowly stewed with olive oil and oregano, pureed with white wine, and then used as the base for braising calamari.

Again, the malloreddus, despite cooking for nearly 10 minutes, were a little too unpleasantly firm.

The main was grilled bluefish topped with more of the tomato-mint sauce (also batched up and frozen at the beginning of the month), augmented with chilies and bay leaves.

[Ling]

Wow, the pasta dish looks great, Nathan.

I've been meaning to ask the regulars to these Italian regional cooking threads--which region has been your favourite?

I can't wait to do Sicily next month!!!

[Kevin72]

Pane curasau, aka Sardinian Sheet Music bread, is one of the more widely recognized culinary exports of the island; at least here in Dallas I've spotted it packaged and for sale in a number of gourmet grocers.

I used the recipe from Marcella Cucina. Make a semolina dough with a little less yeast than normal for this batch, let it rise, cut the dough in half, then half, then half again and keep going until you have 16 equal pieces of dough. Shape them each into a ball, let rise again. Roll out the balls into a small disc. Then, flour the top of one disc, put another disc of dough onto it, and roll them together into an even wider, thinner disc. Slide them onto a baking stone in your oven set to kill. They poof up immediately:

After about a minute and a half, remove the poofed up disc from the oven. Working quickly before it deflates, cut around the edges to open it up and let steam out, then pull the disc apart into two halves again. Set aside and work through the rest of the dough.

Lower the heat on the oven and, working in batches, put the discs back in to crisp up, again about a minute and half or so. Now, you wind up with a stack of stiff, crackly, "sheets" of bread:

What to do with these now? They keep forever, if carefully wrapped, and originated for the shepherds to take with them on their long forays into the wilderness. Refresh them by dipping them in hot water. I guess in the shepherd's meal, these and a piece of cheese were probably the meal. In a more elaborate fashion, though, you can top the refreshed bread with a lamb ragu. When made in this fashion, they are now called pane fratau.

This is what I did with them Monday night after making the batch most of Sunday afternoon. I'd dip a disc of dough into boiling water to refresh them, then laid it onto a baking sheet. Topped with a spoonful of lamb ragu (lamb shoulder, ground lamb to augment since lamb shoulder has somehow become impossible to find, pancetta, chilies, bay leaves, red wine, and yet more of the tomato mint sauce) and grated cheese. Refresh another disc and repeat, until you have three layers of discs. I then baked them, though Marcella's recipe just calls for you to toss the discs with the sauce.

Out of the oven, I followed Hathor's writeup from the start of the month and topped it with a poached egg. There are few things in this world that can't be improved with an egg over them.

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 . . . .

[Kevin72]

I've been meaning to ask the regulars to these Italian regional cooking threads--which region has been your favourite?

←

Of the regions we've done so far, Rome continues to be my favorite. I love the simplicity, robust, straightforward flavors and cooking style. However, lately, probably due to roasting in 100F summer weather already, I've been thinking fondly of Piemonte and its rich braises and roasts and looking forward already to a hopefully very cold winter here in Texas.

I suspect everyone's favorite region will change after next month . . .

[JasonZ]

Forgive me if someone's already mentioned this, but is there a North African presence in Sardinian cuisine? Carthage controlled Sardinia at one time (ok, that was quite some time ago) and the couscous-type dish made me think of North Africa.

←

Lexy, the cous cous dish has a more recent origin and is connected to Genova's role in the Mediterranean.

One of Genova's colonies on the Northern African shores at the times of the sea-faring republics was the island of Tabarka, inhabited by settlers coming from the ligurian Pegli. They remained there till the eraly XVIII century, when pirate raids and the mounting French influence in the area pushed them to move. They were granted a right to settle on the Sardinian island of San Pietro by Carlo Emanuele III di Savoia and founded the town of Carloforte.

Carloforte remains a fascinating and unique place. The people speek a Ligurian dialect, their recipes have a strong Tunisian influence, hence then cous cous, and they are famous for their love for tuna.

←

I've been trying to find a recipe I remember from an issue of a long defunct food magazine, called "Simply Seafood" ... the recipe was for a tuna braise, traditional to Sicily. I don't know if it would be the Carloforte recipe or another, but if anyone has such a recipe, I'd love to see it ...

Thanks,

JasonZ

[FoodMan]

Ling-

These photos are one of the best we've seen here. Everything looks great!

Kevin-

I love your demo of the carta de musica...and I thought you said you cannot bake ...

I've been quiet the slacker this month. Not sure why. I guess I'm saving up for the divine Sicily, with so many options to cook from! I sure hope to put in one more contribution from Sardinia still before this week is over.

Favorite region so far: Lazio (Rome) and I really loved Liguria and it's cooking, so surprisingly simple and good.

[Kevin72]

Pastry's more the problems I have; I'm pretty okay with bread doughs and such, though.

[Nathan P.]

Wow, the pasta dish looks great, Nathan.

←

I suspect you are admiring Kevin's pasta since I have been fairly quiet over the last couple weeks. Not that I won't gladly take the praise and credit for his food.

And Kevin, truly magnificent Sardinian bread. I like the open book in the background that shows you clearly matched the instruction. Loved the final dish as well.

I've been trying to dig through my copy of Colman Andrew's Catalan Cuisine book which has buried in it a few Sardininan recipes that reflect Catalan culture on the island but have been running short on time. Thought it would be an interesting variance on the theme.

[Chufi]

Kevin, I've been eyeing Marcella's recipe for the music sheet bread since the beginning of this month, and decided it was too difficult. Now you make it look so simple!

My favorite region has been Liguria. I suspect that this has much to do with the fact that I was cooking from the wonderful Plotkin book. It seems I really need a real book to inspire me, a book to take to bed, pages to flip through while I have breakfast. Searching for recipes online just isn't the same.

I haven't cooked much this month. June was a really busy month for me and while I do have a book, the Bugialli book on Sicily & Sardinia, somehow I could not really get into it. I did re-read D.H. Lawrences magnificent little travel book Sea & Sardinia though. If you want a gloomy, grey, inhospitable impression of Sardinia, this is the book to read (he visits Sardinia in the winter, meets some weird people, and eats some pretty disgusting food)

[Kevin72]

It isn't really hard to make, per se, but it is pretty time consuming and not something you can leave to just cook, since you're putting stuff in the oven, removing it, separating it quickly, etc.