Sardinia: Malloreddus Campidanese Style

400 g Gnocchetti Sardi
300 gr sausage
300 gr tomato sauce
200 gr fresh Sardinian Pecorino cheese 
50 gr onion 
30 gr extra virgin olive oil
salt

Sardinia: Malloreddus Campidanese Style. Peel and finely chop the onion and let it dry slowly in a pan, together with the oil. Peel the sausage and crumble it coarsely, add it to the sautéed onion and brown for 15 minutes over high heat, stirring frequently. Add the tomato purée, cover with a lid and cook for about an hour, stirring occasionally. Cook the malloreddus in plenty of salted water. Grate the pecorino into a bowl and add a ladle of the pasta cooking water, then blend with an immersion blender until you obtain a smooth, non-pasty cream. Drain the malloreddus and add them to the sausage sauce directly in a pan and add the pecorino cream, stirring well to mix all the ingredients. Serve the Campidanese malloreddus while still hot. Although Sardinia is famous for its beaches and the sea, many of the typical dishes of the island are “land”. Malloreddus have been present in Sardinian cuisines for hundreds of years. They are homemade pasta by housewives and their shape derives from the processing: the balls of dough are pressed against the “ciuliri”, a typical straw basket. In this way a kind of shell of about 2 centimeters is obtained, very suitable for collecting the delicious sauce inside. In the historic recipe, saffron is added to the dough. Today, to make malloreddus more universal, this ingredient is no longer present. Without hesitation, we combine the malloreddus alla Campidanese with a full-bodied red wine such as Carignano.