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 Sardegna Food - Sardinia Food:
Sardinia is called Sardegna in Italian.
Sardinia food: Bottarga
(mullet roe), also known as Sardinian caviar,
is considered one of the most authentic, delicious examples of the island’s
gastronomic tradition. Bottarga is made from mullet eggs, which are
carefully extracted from the fish, with great care being taken
to
avoid rupturing the sacks that hold them. Similar to tuna roe, but with a more
delicate flavor, bottarga is often served in fine slices, alongside
slices of celery drizzled with good olive oil. Combining bottarga with
artichoke hearts is another popular way of serving it, poetically uniting two
Sardinian food products from the land and the sea.
An article on bottarga.
The heritage of preserving seafood and farming the nutrient rich sea salt of the tidal
marshes to preserve that seafood is maintained to this day especially in Sicily and Sardinia.
Fishermen from Sardinia bring the tradition of air-cured tuna and flavorful sea salt to the rest of the world.
Once known as the poor man's caviar bottarga is the salted, pressed and dried roe of either
the tuna (tonno) or gray mullet (mugine). It is a specialty of both Sardinia and Sicily.
The long, fat roe sack is salted and massaged by hand over several weeks to eliminate air
pockets. The roe is then pressed using wooden planks and stone or marble weights. It is
then sun dried for one to two months.
While some think that this practice of preserving the tuna or mullet roe is the legacy of
the Byzantines, the practice actually goes farther back to ancient and possibly even
pre-historic times. The same process is used in Turkey, Egypt, and even coastal areas of Asia.
Tuna bottarga has a lively, salty, sharp flavor, stronger than gray mullet bottarga. Bottarga
is shaved, sliced, chopped or grated, and just a little can provide a ton of flavor to a whole
host of dishes. The most popular dish in the Sardegna food tradition is
Spaghittus cun bottariga (Spaghetti con Bottarga),
or linguine con bottarga, made with grated or finely
chopped bottarga, olive oil, red pepper flakes, and chopped parsley, simple but delicious.
Top a salad of bitter greens with shaved bottarga, or grate it into your rice congee for a
more flavorful breakfast. Bottarga should be kept in the fridge to maintain its flavor.
Not to forget in the Sardinia foods are the traditional breads of Sardinia
that tend to be hard and dry,
and prepared only once a week. Pane carasau,
a crisp, very thin bread that is made from durum wheat semolina and wheat flour,
can keep for weeks at a time due to its very low water content; traditionally,
it was the bread that shepherds and herdsmen could carry with them during their
months in the mountains. In recent years, this bread has increasingly been
called carta da musica by visitors from the mainland,
because it resembles sheets of parchment-like music manuscript paper.
The quintessential pasta of Sardegna is
malloreddus, a small gnocchi made from durum wheat semolina, salt
and water, and given its distinctive yellow color by the addition of saffron. Small pieces of
the pasta dough are rolled across thin wires or a ridged board to give them
their characteristic ridged surface. Malloreddus are traditionally
served with a simple tomato sauce, a hearty lamb or sausage ragu, or
with butter and grated percorino cheese.
(c) 1997-2008 E. Massetti
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