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Ingredients
- For the Sauce:
- This is a great sauce, almost a universal pasta dressing, but particularly suitable for malloreddus. Because it is so good and useful, I make it in large batches and pack it in small portions for freezing.
- 1 1/2 pounds sweet Italian sausage
- 1 cup white wine
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for finishing the pasta
- 2 cups onions, chopped
- 1 plump garlic clove, peeled and sliced
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more for the pasta pot
- 1/2 teaspoon peperoncino flakes, or to taste
- 6 cups Italian plum tomatoes, preferably San Marzano, crushed by hand
- 1 branch of fresh basil, with lots of leaves
- 1 cup freshly grated pecorino
- For Cooking and Finishing the Pasta:
- 2 pounds Malloreddus, (See recipe for Homemade Malloreddus)
Preparation
Step 1
Remove the sausage casings, and crumble the meat into a large bowl.
Pour over it 1/2 cup of the wine, and mix this in with your fingers, breaking up any big meat clumps, so the sausage is evenly moistened.
Pour the olive oil into the big skillet, and set it over medium heat. Stir in the onions, and cook until they begin to soften, about 5 minutes; scatter the sliced garlic in the pan, and season with the salt and peperincino. When everything is sizzling, crumble in the sausage, and stir with the onions.
Pour in the remaining 1/2 cup wine, raise the heat a bit, and cook, stirring, as the wine cooks away and the sausage becomes all browned, about 10 minutes. Pour in the tomatoes and a cup of water (which you've used to slosh and rinse the tomato cans and bowl). Submerge the basil branch in the liquid, cover the skillet, and bring to a boil. Set the cover ajar, adjust the heat to keep the sauce bubbling steadily, and cook for an hour or more, until the sauce has developed good flavor and reduced to the consistency you like for dressing pasta. Remove and discard basil branch. You can use some of the sauce right away-you'll need half of it to dress a batch of malloreddus-or let it cool, then refrigerate or freeze for later use.
For cooking and dressing the pasta: Bring a large pot of well-salted water (at least 7 quarts water with 11/2 tablespoons kosher salt) to a rolling boil. Heat half the sausage-tomato sauce, about 4 cups, to a bare simmer in a wide skillet or sauté pan (if you've just made the sauce, use the same pan). If the sauce has cooled and thickened, loosen it with some of the pasta water.
Shake the malloreddus in a colander or strainer to remove excess flour, and drop all of it into the pot, stirring to keep the pieces from clumping together. Cover the pot, and rapidly return the water to a rolling boil, stirring once or twice, then cook the malloreddus, partly covered, until barely al dente, 5 to 6 minutes.
Lift out the pasta in big bunches with a spider, drain for a moment, and spill them into the simmering sauce. Over low heat, toss the malloreddus and sauce together for a minute or two, until all are coated and perfectly al dente. (Thin the sauce, if necessary, with hot pasta water, or thicken it quickly over higher heat.)
Turn off the heat, and sprinkle the grated cheese over the malloreddus and toss well. Finish with a drizzle of olive oil, toss again, and heap the pasta in warm bowls. Serve immediately, passing more cheese at the table.
MALLOREDDUS
1 teaspoon saffron thread
1½ pounds semolina flour, plus more for working the dough
Food Processor; Drop the saffron threads into 1/2 cup of hot water in a spouted measuring cup, and let steep 5 minutes or longer. Pour in 3/4 cup cold water (so you have 11/4 cups total).
Put the flour in the bowl of the food processor, and start the processor running. Pour in almost all of the saffron water through the feed tube (the threads can go in, too), reserving a couple of tablespoons. Process for 30 to 40 seconds, until a dough forms and gathers on the blade and cleans the sides of the bowl. If the dough is too sticky, add another tablespoon or two of flour. If it is too dry, add the remaining water. Process another 10 to 20 seconds.
Turn the dough out on a lightly floured surface, and knead by hand for a minute, until it's smooth, soft, and stretchy. Press it into a disk, wrap well in plastic wrap, and let rest at room temperature for at least 1/2 hour. (Refrigerate the dough for up to a day, or freeze for a month or more. Defrost in the refrigerator, and return to room temperature before rolling.)
Cut the dough into eight pieces; work with one at a time, and keep the others covered with a towel or plastic wrap. Roll the dough under your hands on a clean work surface, first forming a smooth log and gradually stretching it into a long rope 1/2 inch thick. With dough scraper or knife, chop the rope into ?-inch-long segments, like tiny cylinders; separate and lightly dust them with flour.
To form malloreddus: Hold the grater-shredder at an angle against the work surface, turned so the back side or underside is exposed: You want this smooth surface of perforated holes to mark the pasta, not the rough surface of sharp edges and burrs that you would use for grating. (If you are using a box grater, you want the inside of the finest grating-shredding face; you'll need to reach it through the bottom of the box.)
Pick up one small piece of dough, and place it on the grater face. Press into it with your lightly floured thumb, and quickly push down and away-rolling it against the holes and flicking it off the grater in one movement. It's just like rolling gnocchi against the tines of a fork (and similar to plucking a guitar string). Roll all the cut segments into malloreddus, dust them with flour, and scatter them on a lightly floured tray, not touching.
Repeat with the remaining pieces of dough. When all the pasta is formed, you can leave the malloreddus at room temperature until you are ready to cook. Or freeze them solid on the trays, and pack them airtight in plastic bags