Making a duck ragout/ragù with minced duck is not much different from making a good bolognese sauce.
It is the same cooking method, they are both slow cooked and have the same ingredients: the soffritto made by sautéing in extra virgin olive oil minced / finely cut onion, carrot and celery.
I use the same herbs and add a grating of nutmeg.
Wine and good stock are very much staples in my cooking, in this case I add white wine with the duck because it is a pale meat.
In this case the vegetables for the soffritto are not as finely cut as I would have liked, however my kitchen helper was in a hurry. I say this in a light tone, the sauce could have looked a little better, but it tasted good.
There are few little things that are different from making a bolognese and a ragù d’ anatra (duck ragout) to dress pasta:
The addition of a little milk or cream that is usual in the bolognese; this is because the duck is fatty. I watched the seller place whole duck breasts into the mincer so the fat is to be expected.
Because of this abundance of fat I also skim some of the fat off the surface once the ragout is cooked.
I add is less tomato paste. When I make a ragout with duck or game, I make a brown sauce rather than red.
Sometimes, I also may add a few dried mushrooms to enhance the taste. The liquid also goes in.
In Bologna I visited where Filippo Tommaso Marinetti hung out with his futurist friends and discussed the evils of eating pasta. I did not expect to find it to be part of a grand hotel.
Cafe’ Marinetti is located in the Grand Hotel Majestic “Gia Baglioni”. It is an 18th-century palazzo across the street from the Cattedrale Metropolitana di San Pietro and only a 5-minute walk from the Towers of Bologna.
The hotel is decorated with Baroque details, expensive paintings and photographs of famous visiting celebrities….Frank Sinatra, Eva Gardner, Princess Diana, Sting, Bruce Springsteen and others.
The hotel is very luxurious…when I was there there was a Bentley Ferrari and a sports BMW out the front collecting and dropping off guests.
Cafe’ Marinetti is frequented by well heeled guests as I imagine it was then during Marinetti’s time.
But who was Marinetti?
And really why would I expect someone who had such strong views about pasta to be anything else but part of the well heeled set?
It is interesting to see that pasta features on the menu at Cafe Marinetti and there is no risotto.
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, one of the founders of Futurism in the early 1900:
My mother used to add cream rather than milk, and a little grated nutmeg.
BOLOGNESE RAGÙ
300g of beef mince 85% fat
150g of pork mince
50g of unsalted butter
50g of onion finely chopped
50g of carrot finely chopped
50g of celery finely chopped
125ml of red wine
30g of tomato paste, triple concentrated
125ml of whole milk
salt to taste
black pepper to taste
Place a large thick-bottomed saucepan over a medium heat. Add the minced pork belly to the pot and cook until all the liquid from the meat has evaporated, then add the minced beef and cook until golden, stirring frequently. Transfer the meat to a bowl and set aside.
Add the butter to the saucepan and place over a medium heat. Add the onion, carrot and celery and cook until the onions are very soft and translucent. Finally, add the tomato paste and sauté for 5 minutes more, stirring occasionally.
Return the meat to the saucepan, turn up the heat and pour in the red wine. Cook over a high heat for 2 minutes, then cover the pan and turn the heat down to low
Leave the ragù alla Bolognese to simmer very gently for at least 3 hours. The meat must not be excessively dry. Pour in the whole milk and cook for a further 40 minutes just before serving
Ragù alla Bolognese is very tasty when just cooked, but is even better the next day. Reheat the sauce over a very low heat with a little bit of milk and use it to season pasta.
In a restaurant in Modena we met a beautiful elderly woman who was the mother of one of the three chefs of a fabulous restaurant in Modena and her daughter is the owner. It is often the case that mothers and skilled mature women are responsible for making stuffed pasta in restaurants. They are after all very skilled and practised in this area having made it over many years at home.
La signora comes the restaurant each morning to make the stuffed pasta – tortellini and tortelloni (the squares of pasta are cut much bigger). Both are closed and folded in the shape of a navel. The traditional fillings are usually made with ricotta, spinach and Parmigiano Reggiano and covered with a melted browned butter and sage dressing.
In Bologna the stuffing the for tortelli and tortelloni is likely to be made of prosciutto, mortadella, roast veal and Parmesan.
More often than not, stuffed pasta is dressed with a ragù….today one of us had a ragù made with a mixture of …selvaggina, wild meats – boar, rabbit, maybe pheasant.
Tortelloni di Zucca have mashed cooked pumpkin filling. Nutmeg, crumbed amaretti and mostarda mantovana – pickled fruit in a sweet mustard syrup. I ate Tortelloni di Zucca in Ferrara. But you may be surprised to know that in Ferrara they called these Capellacci….little hats…..Capelletti like tortellini, are the smaller version and these are usually cooked in broth (brodo).
And there are Ravioli.
The pasta for all stuffed pasta can be white (egg, flour and water) or can be green (spinach).
In a restaurant in Bologna we ate ravioli stuffed with ricotta and spinach but in a restaurant in San Giovanni in Marignano the variation in the stuffing was ricotta and marjoram and the dressing was made with asparagus. It is after all spring in Italy, even if it is raining now in Bologna.
Sometimes, it is easier to tell a story and describe a recipe by photos.
Goat or kid if you can get it has been available for a while this season (Autumn in Australia). The mint on my balcony is doing well, celeriac is in season, the last of the red tomatoes also and there is a glut of carrots in Victoria at the moment. And all of these ingredients, cooked on low heat and for a long time made a fabulous ragout (ragù in Italian). On this occasion I used the braise as a pasta sauce. Good quality Pecorino cheese is a must.
Goat cut into cubes – you can tell that it is not an old goat by the pale colour of the meat. It is trimmed of fat.
The usual onion , part of the soffritto in most Italian soups and braises.
Add a chopped carrot and instead of celery I used some celeriac and some of the inner leaves of the celeriac.
Remove the soffritto, add a little more extra virgin olive oil and brown the meat.
Add the herbs and spices. Recognise them? Salt and pepper too.
A couple of red tomatoes.
Top with liquid. I added a mixture of chicken stock (always in my freezer) and some Marsala, to keep it in the Sicilian way of things. On another occasion I may add white wine or dry vermouth.
Cover the pan and braise slowly.
It does not look as good as it tasted…the perfume was fabulous too.
Serve with fresh mint leaves and grated Pecorino.
N.B. Real Pecorino is made from pecora (sheep)..i.e. sheep’s milk. I used a Pecorino Romano. See how white it is in colour?
Gnocchetti Sardi —also known as Malloreddus —is one of Sardinia’s most beloved dishes, and recently a plate I enjoyed in Melbourne inspired me to recreate it at home.
This rustic, slow-cooked tomato and sausage sauce, scented with wild fennel and finished with Pecorino Sardo, captures the flavours of the island’s Campidano region. Made with simple semolina pasta, it’s a deeply satisfying dish with centuries of Sardinian history in every mouthful.
Malloreddus Campidanese is a dish that expresses everything Sardinians hold dear: semolina from their plains, pork from their farms, wild herbs from their hillsides, and pecorino from their flocks. It’s simple, honest, and deeply tied to the land.
A Taste of Sardinia and a Little Lesson on Ragù, Sugo and Salsa
Sardinia is rugged and ancient, with a cuisine shaped by isolation, pastoral traditions, and fierce pride in local ingredients. The food may seem simple at first glance, but every dish reflex a story—of shepherds, small villages, family tables, deeply rooted in land, heritage and centuries of tradition.
And few dishes express this better than malloreddus—the dimpled little pasta most of us know as Gnocchetti Sardi.
Wild fennel sold in bunches in Markets,
Malloreddus Campidanese
I recently ate at a Sardinian restaurant in Melbourne and ordered a beautifully authentic plate of Malloreddus Campidanese—homemade semolina pasta shaped as little gnocchetti, with a slow-cooked sausage ragù scented with wild fennel, chilli and plenty of Sardinian pecorino.
I explored some of the ingredients and the centuries-old culinary customs behind this plate—and then recreate it at home.
Sardinia: A Rugged Island With an Ancient Kitchen
Sardinia (Sardegna) sits in the Mediterranean. Its history weaves together Nuragic civilisation, Phoenicians, Romans, Aragonese, and Piedmontese, yet the cuisine is remarkably its own.
For much of history, Sardinia was an island of shepherds and farmers, not fishermen as one might assume. Inland life shaped the cooking:
abundant sheep and goat, meat and milk, leading to distinctive cheeses like Pecorino Sardo and Fiore Sardo
pork as a cornerstone ingredient—fresh, cured, spiced, roasted
wild herbs, especially wild fennel, growing freely in fields and along roadsides
durum wheat semolina, used for breads, fregola, and pastas like malloreddus
Malloreddus (Gnocchetti Sardi)
Another name for malloreddus is Gnocchetti Sardi—tiny, ribbed shells shaped with one’s thumb and a ridged wooden tool. They’re made from: durum wheat semolina, water, salt and no eggs.
The dough is kneaded for quite a long time until elastic, rolled into ropes, cut into small pieces and pressed to create the characteristic grooves. Those grooves are essential—they hold just the right amount of sauce, especially a pork-based ragù.
The name malloreddus may come from malloru, meaning “small bull,” possibly because of the shape or because the pasta was once served at festivals celebrating the harvest and the cattle season.
Commercial pasta called Gnocchetti Sardi
The Campidano Region
This dish originates from the Campidano, the broad fertile plain stretching across central-southern Sardinia. Here, wheat, tomatoes and pork have long been staples.
Wild fennel grows freely in Sardegna, and its perfume—grassy, sweet, faintly anise-like—defines the local sausage (salsiccia sarda). Pecorino Sardo is the preferred grating cheese and adds the salty, tangy bite that completes the dish.
In Sardinia, food is rarely just food. It’s geography, community, memory, seasonality, and pride—especially in dishes like this.
Gnocchetti Sardi – Malloreddus Campidanese
Ragù, Sugo, Salsa: The Italian Vocabulary of Sauce
Food terminology in Italy is wonderfully precise (and passionately defended). Here’s how these words differ:
Ragù
A meat-based sauce, long-cooked and reduced so the flavours concentrate. The word comes from the French ragoût—a slow-cooked, hearty stew. A ragù can be made with beef, pork, veal, game, or a mixture. In Sardinia, pork is the star.
Ragùs are used to dress pasta, fregola, polenta or rice.
Sugo
Sugo is often used interchangeably with ragù, but usually refers to a sauce—often tomato-based—that may or may not contain meat. Different regions of Italy prefer one term above the other, but generally a ragú is cooked on low heat for a long time and the flavours are concentrated.
Salsa
This is the more generic word for “sauce,” A simpler, quicker, often smoother sauce. A or salsa verde (herb sauce) or salsa di pomodoro is typically a pure tomato sauce cooked briefly, without meat or vegetables.
A Note on This Recipe
Because sausages cook relatively quickly, some cooks hesitate to call this a true ragù unless extra pork pieces are added for longer cooking. But the result—hearty, rich, aromatic—certainly behaves like one.
Sardinian-Style Pork Sausage
If you’ve ever tasted Sardinian sausage (salsiccia sarda), you’ll know why it’s so prized. Traditionally it’s: Coarse-minced, Lightly spiced with fennel seeds, Rich without being fatty, Smoky or air-dried, depending on the region
For a ragù, you want a fresh sausage that breaks down easily in the pan. The fennel adds sweetness and perfume, working perfectly with tomato. Even if you can’t source Sardinian sausage, choose one that isn’t overly seasoned—let the natural pork flavour shine.
This pasta—Malloreddus alla Campidanese—is considered one of Sardinia’s most iconic recipes.
It comes from the central-southern region of Campidano, where wheat, pork and tomatoes were everyday staples. It’s often served at festivals and family gatherings, usually finished with a generous snowdrift of Pecorino Sardo.
It’s comforting, deeply flavourful, and somehow both rustic and refined.
IN MY PANTRY
Malloreddus Campidanese is a dish that expresses everything Sardinians hold dear: semolina from their plains, pork from their farms, wild herbs from their hillsides, and pecorino from their flocks. It’s simple, honest, and deeply tied to the land.
I had some commercially bought Gnocchetti Sardi in my pantry. I also had crushed tomatoes. I bought some Italian pork sausages. I also know where to collect wild fennel, but if you purchase Italian pork and fennel sausages (and perhaps add a few fennel seeds) you will have similar results.
The dish is wonderfully straightforward to make. Whether you hand-roll the pasta or use a packet from your pantry, this is one of the most satisfying and evocative Italian dishes you can cook at home.
6 Italian pork sausages (plain or pork-and-fennel; hot or mild)
1 onion, finely chopped
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
½ cup dry red wine
800 g crushed tomatoes
2 whole garlic cloves
Salt and crushed chilli flakes (or black pepper)
Wild fennel sprigs or ½ tsp fennel seeds
Fresh basil (optional)
400 g Gnocchetti Sardi (100 g per person)
Pecorino Sardo or Pecorino Pepato, grated
*If you are unable to find Pecorino Sardo, use Pecorino (of good quality). I sometimes use Pecorino Pepato (has pepper corns in it) and fits in with the rustic character of the dish.
Method
Prepare the base Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan. Add the chopped onion and soften slowly over moderate heat.
Cook the sausage Remove the casings from the sausages and crumble the meat into small pieces. Add to the pan and brown thoroughly.
Deglaze Pour in the wine and allow it to evaporate.
Add the tomatoes and aromatics Stir in the crushed tomatoes, garlic cloves, fennel (sprigs or seeds), basil if using, and seasoning.
Simmer Cover and cook over low heat for 30–40 minutes, until thickened and flavoursome. Remove garlic before serving.
Cook the pasta Boil the Gnocchetti Sardi in salted water until al dente. Drain, reserving a little pasta water.
Dress the pasta Combine pasta with the ragù, adding a splash of pasta water if needed.
Serve Present with plenty of grated Pecorino Sardo. Enjoy immediately.
Alternative: Simple Tomato Salsa
If you prefer a lighter dressing or want a summery version:
Crushed Tomatoes.
Ingredients
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
800 g crushed tomatoes or puréed fresh tomatoes
2 whole garlic cloves
Fresh basil
Salt and pepper
Method
Place all ingredients in a pan and cook uncovered until the sauce thickens. Remove garlic. In a separate pan, brown the crumbled sausage meat and add it—along with the pan juices—to the salsa.
This produces a lighter, fresher flavour than a full ragù.
**The post below has great photos of my Sicilian aunt making Sicilian Gnocchetti:
The hotel is decorated with Baroque details, expensive paintings and photographs of famous visiting celebrities….Frank Sinatra, Eva Gardner, Princess Diana, Sting, Bruce Springsteen and others.
The hotel is very luxurious…when I was there there was a Bentley Ferrari and a sports BMW out the front collecting and dropping off guests.
Cafe’ Marinetti is frequented by well heeled guests as I imagine it was then during Marinetti’s time.
