I was waiting for the tomatoes to be in season before making these delicious and gorgeous Sardinian pasta shapes called Culurgiones.
Their shape is similar to a wheat plant and, although this pasta shape is originally from Sardinia, there are similar versions of this pasta shape all around the world ( in Georgia Culurgiones are called Khindali (the filling is spicier) and in Asia dumplings. And the difference is generally the recipe of the filling, and sometimes the pasta dough.
In fact, Culurgiones means "Filling" (iN Italian - Ripieno) in Sardinian and it actually comes from Ogliastra (Nuoro), Eastern side of Sardinia, and its filling is made with potatoes, mint, pecorino cheese, eggs, garlic, salt and pepper.
However, as you might know, I love to taste my creativity in the kitchen (I literally open the cupboards and put things together based on what I got available), so in this filling I used a variety of fresh herbs (thyme, mint and basil) directly from my balcony garden and Parmigiano Reggiano 30 months aged rather than pecorino cheese. The result of the dish was an explosion of taste, so good that I want to nominate it as one of my signature dishes indeed.
The ingredients for this recipe (I made around 60 pieces 30/20gr each. They were different in size as I like to experiments formats and understand which one was my favorite) .
For the dough:
600gr finely ground semolina flour
250-300ml lukewarm water
2 tablespoon of extra-virgin olive oil
For the filling:
800gr red skin potatoes
80gr of Parmigiano Reggiano 30 months aged
1 & ½ clove of garlic
Handful of mint (70%), basil (15%) and thyme (15%)
1 egg (free-range)
Salt and black pepper
For the tomato sauce:
½ little white onion
2 cloves of garlic
30gr of anchovies paste
500ml tomatoes passata (organic)
½ cup of tomato water (I made sure that the last passata in the brick was used)
3 tablespoon of olive oil 1 teaspoon of brown sugar
Salt Black pepper
½ hand full of fresh basil
NOTE: Food is chemistry so my ingredients can be different than yours, so please taste everything first and with your palate to best understand if the dish is harmonious and balanced - Umami. Yum!
