Italian Sardinian Malloreddus with Wild Boar Sauce | Malloreddus con Salsa al Cinghiale

Sep 22

11 min read

Malloreddus con Salsa al Cinghiale (Italian Sardinian Malloreddus with Wild Boar Sauce)

Malloreddus belong to the Campidano, the flat wheat country north of Cagliari, and they are shaped for one purpose: to carry sauce. Each small semolina dumpling is dragged across a ridged surface so that its outer face is corrugated and its inside is left hollow. Sauce grips the outside and collects in the middle. They are the most deliberately engineered pasta shape on the island, and Sardinia has never made them by accident.

The sauce comes from the opposite landscape, the granite interior of the Barbagia and the Ogliastra, where wild boar is still hunted through holm oak and myrtle scrub every winter. The meat is soaked in Cannonau, coloured only lightly, and braised with juniper, myrtle leaves and a restrained amount of tomato until it shreds. Sardinian boar sauce is aromatic before it is rich.

Yield: 4 servings. Prep: 1 hour plus overnight marinating. Cook: 2 hours 30 minutes. Total: about 3 hours 40 minutes plus the soak. Difficulty: intermediate. Course: primo piatto. Region: Sardinia, the Campidano and the Barbagia.

The Story

The name is Campidanese, not Italian. Malloru means bull in the dialect of the southern plain, and malloreddus is its diminutive: little bulls, or more accurately little calves. The shape was made at home on su ciulliri, a flat wicker basket, or on a ribbed wooden paddle, by pressing a thumb into a short cylinder of dough and dragging it down the ridges in a single movement. Women made them in quantity for weddings and village feast days, and a bride who could not shape them cleanly heard about it.

Wild boar comes from a different Sardinia. The interior highlands, the Barbagia around Orgosolo and Fonni and the Ogliastra above Urzulei, are oak and scrub country, and the Sardinian boar is a recognised subspecies, Sus scrofa meridionalis, smaller and leaner than the mainland animal. It feeds on acorns, wild pears and myrtle berries. The winter hunt is collective: the animal is divided among everyone who walked.

Putting the two together is a modern Sardinian habit rather than an ancient one, because the plain and the mountains cooked apart for most of the island's history. What joins them is Cannonau, grown in both places and used three times over here. Myrtle is the other signature: mirto grows across the whole island and its leaves, used like bay but far more resinous, are what tell you the sauce is Sardinian and not Tuscan.

Ingredients

For the malloreddus

Durum wheat semola rimacinata, 3 cups (450 g)
Warm water, about 1 cup (240 ml)
Saffron threads, 1 generous pinch (0.1 g)
Fine sea salt, 1 tsp (6 g)
Extra semola for the board, 2 tbsp (20 g)

For the marinade

Boneless wild boar shoulder, 1 3/4 lb (800 g)
Cannonau di Sardegna, 2 cups (480 ml)
Juniper berries, lightly crushed, 8
Bay leaves, 2
Black peppercorns, 10
Yellow onion, quartered, 1/2

For the boar sauce

Extra virgin olive oil, 3 tbsp (45 ml)
Lardo or pancetta, finely diced, 2 oz (55 g)
Yellow onion, finely diced, 1 medium, about 5 oz (140 g)
Carrot, finely diced, 1 small, about 2 oz (60 g)
Celery, finely diced, 1 stalk, about 2 oz (60 g)
Garlic cloves, lightly crushed, 2
Fresh myrtle leaves, 8, or 2 extra bay leaves
Fresh rosemary sprig, 1 short
Juniper berries, freshly crushed, 6
Tomato paste, 1 tbsp (16 g)
Canned peeled tomatoes, crushed by hand, 1 1/2 cups (360 g)
Cannonau di Sardegna, fresh, 3/4 cup (180 ml)
Hot light meat broth, 2 cups (480 ml)
Fine sea salt, 1 1/2 tsp (9 g), divided
Freshly ground black pepper, 1/2 tsp

For cooking and finishing

Water, 5 quarts (4.7 liters)
Coarse sea salt, 2 tbsp (35 g)
Pecorino Sardo maturo, finely grated, 2 1/2 oz (70 g)
Extra virgin olive oil, 1 tbsp (15 ml)
Fresh myrtle or rosemary leaves, torn, to finish

Preparation

Step 1: Marinate the boar in Cannonau overnight

Cut the shoulder into large chunks and submerge them in the 2 cups (480 ml) of Cannonau with the crushed juniper, bay, peppercorns and quartered onion. Cover and refrigerate 12 to 18 hours. The wine does two jobs at once: it draws off the strongest gamey compounds and it stains the meat the deep colour this sauce should have. Discard the marinade afterwards, since it now carries everything you removed.

Step 2: Make the saffron semolina dough

Crumble the saffron into 1/4 cup (60 ml) of hot water and leave it 15 minutes, until the liquid is bright orange. Mound the semola on a board, open a well, and work in the saffron water and then the remaining warm water a little at a time with the salt. Knead 10 minutes until the dough is firm, smooth and very slightly tacky, then wrap it and rest it 30 minutes.

Step 3: Roll and cut the dough

Cut the rested dough into six pieces and keep five covered. Roll the first into a rope about the thickness of a pencil, roughly 1/2 inch (12 mm), dusting with semola rather than flour, and cut it into pieces of about 3/4 inch (20 mm). Work in small batches, because semolina dough skins over quickly and a dry piece will not take a ridge cleanly.

Step 4: Shape the malloreddus on the ridges

Set a ribbed gnocchi board, or a clean wicker basket in the Sardinian manner, at a slight angle. Press your thumb onto a piece of dough and drag it down the ridges in one firm movement, so the pasta curls around your thumb and comes away hollow inside and corrugated outside. Do not roll it back and forth. One stroke gives a sharp ridge, three give a smeared surface that holds nothing.

Step 5: Air dry the shaped pasta

Lay the malloreddus in a single layer on a tray dusted with semola, spaced apart, and leave them uncovered at least 30 minutes while the sauce gets going. A short air dry firms the surface so the ridges survive boiling water.

Step 6: Render the lardo and sweat the soffritto

Drain the boar, pat every surface dry and cut it by hand into pieces of about 1/3 inch (8 mm). Warm the olive oil in a heavy pot over medium low heat and cook the lardo 5 minutes, until it melts but stays pale. Add the onion, carrot, celery and garlic with a pinch of salt, sweat them 12 to 15 minutes until soft and sweet, then lift out the garlic.

Step 7: Colour the meat and reduce the first wine

Raise the heat and add the boar in two batches, letting each sit untouched for a minute before you stir, until about half the pieces have taken colour. Stop there. Sardinian boar is very lean and a hard sear turns it metallic. Stir in the tomato paste and cook it 1 minute, then pour in 1/2 cup (120 ml) of the fresh Cannonau and let it reduce almost to nothing.

Step 8: Braise with myrtle, juniper and tomato

Add the crushed tomatoes, myrtle leaves, rosemary, freshly crushed juniper and the remaining salt and pepper, then enough hot broth to come two thirds of the way up the meat. Bring it to the barest simmer, cover with the lid ajar and cook 2 hours 15 minutes, topping up with hot broth as it tightens. It is ready when the boar shreds under a spoon. Remove the rosemary and the myrtle leaves.

Step 9: Boil the malloreddus and finish them in the pan

Bring the water to a rolling boil and add the coarse salt, aiming for water that tastes seasoned rather than briny, because the lardo and the pecorino are already salty. Drop the malloreddus, stir once and cook 4 to 6 minutes for fresh, or 2 minutes short of the box for dried gnocchetti sardi, until the core is still firm. Reserve 1 1/2 cups (360 ml) of the water. Tip the pasta into the warm sauce with a ladle of that water, add the last 1/4 cup (60 ml) of Cannonau and toss over medium heat for 2 minutes, then finish off the heat with the olive oil and the pecorino in two additions.

Plating

Serve in warm shallow bowls, never on a flat plate, because a short semolina pasta in a loose ragu keeps moving and needs a wall to work against. Bring the bowls to about 130°F (55°C) in a low oven and dry them: cold ceramic pulls the heat out of the sauce within thirty seconds and the emulsion tightens.

Serve it mixed, not layered. Sardinian home cooking does not spoon sauce over pasta, it tosses the two together and brings them to the table already married, so every piece should be glossy and orange before it leaves the pan. Finish with grated Pecorino Sardo, a few torn myrtle or rosemary leaves and nothing else.

Professional Technique

The technique that defines this version is the division of the Cannonau into three additions, each with a different job. Two cups go into the overnight marinade, where acidity and colour work on raw muscle for hours. Half a cup is reduced hard once the meat has coloured, driving off the alcohol and leaving concentrated glycerol and fruit sugar behind as body. The last quarter cup goes in at the very end, with the pasta already in the pan, and stays there barely two minutes. That final addition is the only one you actually smell in the bowl, because the volatile aromatics of Cannonau, its dried berry and macchia herb notes, are destroyed by long cooking.

The second technique is the ridge itself. A malloreddus dragged down the board in one stroke has a sharp corrugated face and an open hollow, and that hollow works as a reservoir: the movement of the pan forces sauce into it and it stays. Rolled back and forth, the same dough comes out smoothed and partly sealed, and sheds sauce into the bottom of the bowl.

Texture and Moisture Control

Semolina pasta behaves differently from egg pasta once it is drained, and this is where most malloreddus go wrong. Durum semolina keeps absorbing liquid for several minutes after it leaves the water, so a dish that looks correctly sauced in the pan looks dry in the bowl. Compensate on purpose: finish the toss looser than you want to serve it, roughly the consistency of heavy cream, and hold back half a cup of pasta water.

The other variable is fat, and there is very little of it. Wild boar shoulder can run under 4 percent fat, so the emulsion at the end is carried almost entirely by pasta starch, the rendered lardo and the pecorino. That is why the pan is tossed rather than stirred for the full two minutes, and why the cheese goes in off the heat in two stages rather than all at once.

Professional Mise en Place

This recipe spreads comfortably over three days: marinate on the first, braise on the second, shape the pasta and serve on the third.

Equipment and tools

Ribbed gnocchi board, or a Sardinian wicker ciulliri
Non reactive container or glass bowl for the overnight marinade
Heavy braising pot with a lid, 5 to 6 quarts
Large pasta pot, wide saute pan and a heatproof jug
Fine grater for the Pecorino Sardo

Prepared ahead

Boar marinating in Cannonau, 12 to 18 hours, refrigerated
Sauce braised up to 3 days ahead, refrigerated under its own fat
Malloreddus shaped and air dried, up to 1 day ahead on a tray
Soffritto diced and covered, up to 1 day ahead
Broth portioned, ready to bring up to temperature

Service setup

Sauce warm over the lowest heat, loosened with a splash of broth
Salted water at a rolling boil, timer set for 4 minutes
Reserved pasta water hot in a jug beside the pan
Pecorino grated, olive oil and the final wine measured out
Bowls warming so the sauce does not seize on contact

Chef Tips

Ask the butcher for shoulder, and ask how old the animal was. A boar under two years needs the overnight marinade and nothing more, while an older one wants a full 24 hours and two extra juniper berries. If the raw meat smells strong, it will smell strong in the bowl.

Buy semola rimacinata, the twice milled durum flour, not ordinary semolina. The coarser grind will not hydrate in a thirty minute rest and the dough tears as you drag it across the ridges. If it resists shaping it is almost always too dry: wet your hands rather than watering the whole batch.

Fresh myrtle leaves are worth hunting down in a Sardinian grocery. If you truly cannot find them, use bay and add one strip of orange zest in the last twenty minutes of the braise. That gets closer to the resin of mirto than bay alone.

Make the sauce the day before and let it sit. Juniper, myrtle and Cannonau need time to settle into the fat, and a boar sauce eaten straight from the pot tastes sharper and less joined up.

Common Mistakes

Searing the boar hard. Sardinian boar is leaner than mainland pork and tips into an iron, liver like flavour when it is browned aggressively. Colour about half the pieces and stop.

Adding all the wine at once. Pour the whole bottle into the braise and you get colour, acidity and a dull stewed note, but no perfume at all. Split it between the marinade, the reduction and the final toss.

Rolling the malloreddus back and forth. A second and third pass smears the ridges closed and seals the hollow, and the pasta then sheds sauce into the bottom of the bowl. One firm downward stroke of the thumb is the whole technique.

Drowning the sauce in tomato. This is not a Tuscan ragu. A cup and a half of crushed tomatoes is there for acidity and body, not colour, and doubling it buries the juniper and the myrtle that make the dish Sardinian.

Adding the pecorino over the flame. Pecorino Sardo maturo is dry and high in protein, and it clumps into strings the instant it meets a hot pan. Take the pan off the heat, wait ten seconds, then work it in with the olive oil.

Wine Pairing

Cannonau di Sardegna DOC: The wine already in the sauce, and the only genuinely obvious choice here. It carries dried red fruit, crushed myrtle and a dusty herbal finish that repeats the aromatics of the braise instead of arguing with them, and its tannin is soft enough not to collide with lean meat.

Campidano di Terralba DOC: Bovale grown on the alluvial plain just north of where malloreddus were invented, the most local bottle on this list. Lighter in body and higher in acidity than Cannonau, with a briary, faintly rustic edge, and that acidity is what a tomato and lardo sauce asks for. Serve it at around 59°F (15°C).

Cagliari DOC: Worth choosing when the sauce was made a day ahead and has deepened. These reds are riper and rounder than Terralba, with dark plum fruit and a warm alcoholic frame that stands up to a long braise, while their moderate tannin never scours the palate.

Alghero DOC: The Catalan corner of the northwest, where the reds are built with more structure and polish than the Sardinian average. That firmer tannin works on the pecorino rather than the meat, clearing sheep milk fat between forkfuls, and there is dark fruit enough to meet the juniper.

Aglianico del Vulture Superiore DOCG: The mainland alternative, from the volcanic slopes of Basilicata, and a deliberate change of register. Tight tannin and very high acidity cut a lean game sauce cleanly, and the smoky mineral note under the black fruit answers the resin of the myrtle. Give it an hour in a decanter.

Storage & Reheating

The boar sauce is the part that stores, and it improves for three days. Cool it quickly in a wide shallow container, leave the fat layer on top as a seal, and keep it covered in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. It freezes well for 3 months in flat portions, frozen before any cheese has touched it.

Reheat the sauce in a saucepan over low heat with 3 tablespoons of broth or water stirred in, because a lean game ragu sets solid when cold and catches on the base if it goes on the flame dry. Avoid the microwave, which drives moisture out of the meat unevenly and leaves dry shreds in a wet sauce.

Dressed malloreddus keep sealed and refrigerated for 2 days but will have drunk most of the sauce. Revive them in a wide pan with a splash of water and a teaspoon of oil, tossing 2 minutes until they loosen. Uncooked shaped malloreddus freeze very well: freeze them apart on a tray, bag them, and boil them from frozen with 2 minutes added.

Nutrition

Per serving, based on 4 servings:

Calories: 810 kcal
Total Fat: 27 g
Saturated Fat: 10 g
Trans Fat: 0 g
Unsaturated Fat: 15 g
Cholesterol: 135 mg
Sodium: 980 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 93 g
Fiber: 6 g
Total Sugars: 7 g
Added Sugars: 0 g
Protein: 52 g
Lactose: 0.6 g
Principal micronutrients: iron, zinc, vitamin B12, niacin, selenium, phosphorus, calcium