Malloreddus di Desulo (Vitellini di Desulo)
There is an ancient and savage imperviousness about la barbagia—the high, central plateaux in the Gennargentu Mountains. The Romans named it barbaria—barbarian—they having muddled all campaigns to vanquish the rough Sard clans who lived there, who live there still. And so it was with all who braved ingress onto their wild moors, into their Mesolithic woods. Of ungenerous earth fit only to pasture sheep and goats, these barbagianesi live simply but somehow not poorly, their uninjured traditions nourishing them as much as the fruits of their hunting and foraging. Too, they are primitive artisans, building, weaving, carving objects of rustic beauty and comfort, enriching their homes and villages, themselves, with a most tender spirit. And riding the thin, tortured roads that thread through the mountains, one is carried back into their unfrayed present. Seeming to seep from the pith of the mountains is the village called Desulo, and there one is greeted by citizens dressed—as they dress always, as they have dressed always—in ancestral costumes of handwoven cloth tinged in the reds and blues and yellows of their allegria, of their perpetual, quiet festival of life. And, too, one might be invited to sit at a family table to eat mutton boiled with wild bay leaves and wrapped in warm, thin breads baked over embers. But this after a great bowl of malloreddus—vitellini—little calves, for which Desulo is famed. Not calves at all but tiny, plump, hand-rolled, saffroned pasta that, to the Sards, resemble fat little heifers.
Recipe information
Yield
serves 4
Ingredients
The Pasta
The Sauce
Preparation
The Pasta
Step 1
On a large wooden board or a pastry marble or in a large bowl, place the 16 ounces of flour with the 2 teaspoons sea salt in a flat mound and form a well in the center. Have the saffroned wine and 1 cup of water at the ready. Pour the water and the saffroned wine into the well, drawing the flour from the inside wall of the mound gently into the liquids. Using your hands, continue to work the elements into a rough paste. Add more water, only drops of it at a time, should the paste seem too dry. Work the paste vigorously, distributing the saffron so that the paste is of a uniform golden color. This is a rustic, dense sort of dough, having nothing in common with the satiny texture of egg-based pasta dough. Building this dough is a bit like building mud pies, in the sense of its compactness. The goal is to end up with a dough that can be molded rather than rolled.
Step 2
Take an ounce or so of the dough and form it into a rope about 1/2 inch in diameter. Using your thumb and forefinger, pinch off bits of the rope—each about the size of a dried white bean—and press each bit, rocking it, really, with your thumb, over a rough surface—a tea strainer turned upside down, the tines of a fork turned upside down, or even over a straw place mat. You’ll find that the dough, while taking on the imprint of the surface over which it was pressed, also rolls over on itself, forming a fat little dumpling with a hollow. One needs to practice the technique.
Step 3
Place the finished malloreddus on a tray lined with a kitchen towel lightly dusted with semolina. Cover the malloreddus with another kitchen towel and let them rest—up to 48 hours—until you are ready to cook them in abundant, boiling, sea-salted water until they are tender. Their cooking time is wholly dependent on how long the pasta has been left to dry.
Step 4
Drain the pasta, leaving it somewhat wet, tossing it with its good sauce.
The Sauce
Step 5
In a large pot over a medium flame, warm the olive oil and sauté the sausage, crushing it into the oil. Soften the onion and the garlic in the oil, taking care not to let them color. Add the tomatoes, the sea salt, generous grindings of pepper, the wine, and the dissolved saffron, bringing the mixture to a gentle simmer. Cook the sauce, uncovered, for 15 minutes.
Step 6
Off the flame, add the pecorino and the just-torn basil, stirring the sauce well, then permitting it to rest for 1 hour.
Step 7
Toss the cooked malloreddus with half the sauce, passing the remainder at table with more pecorino and sending round a jug of rough red wine.
