Sardinia is on the Italian culinary map particularly for its wines, meat dishes, and delicious desserts. But it also has an excellent tradition of pasta. When traveling in Ogliastra, a wild geographic zone between the Gulf of Orosei and the Supramonte hills, talk of pasta immediately (and inevitably) leads to culurgiones ogliastrini (or culugionis), the best known and loved specialty of the area.
Culurgiones stuffed with potatoes
The Ogliastra culurgiones are special ravioli stuffed mostly with potatoes. The ingredients, however, can vary sharply depending on the customs of the area where they are made. The first difference is the pasta, which can be made from a mixture of semolina and flour or semolina alone, mixed with warm salted water.
In most of the towns in the area, where the women still know the secrets of its preparation passed down orally from generation to generation, the dough is still rolled out by hand. It’s as thin, elastic, and as smooth as it ever was. Pasta circles are cut out of this dough, and the filling (in its many variations) is placed in the center. Then the classic “wheat spike” closure is formed between the thumb and forefinger, giving the culurgiones a distinctive, almost braided appearance that makes it recognizable at a glance.
The dumplings are then boiled in salted water and served, often with tomato sauce and grated pecorino cheese, although in Lanusei people prefer to eat it in bianco with a drizzle of olive oil and some pecorino. They are also great with mushrooms when in season.
Filling & other variations
This brings us to the seemingly infinite variety of culurgiones. Even though the province of Ogliastra has a territory of less than 770 square miles and fewer than 60,000 residents, there’s a myriad of culurgiones permutations.
In Tortoli, for example, as well as in nearby areas, the filling contains potatoes and onions, with a little cheese. In Arzana, just 12 miles away, cheese dominates the filling. In many towns in Ogliastra – Lanusei, Gairo, Jerzu, Bari Sardo and more – the filling recipe includes mint and garlic in addition to potatoes. In Urzulei and Talana, the filling is kept simple: only cheese and potatoes. Other notable differences can be seen in shapes and sizes, which are much smaller in Jerzu and Arzana than the average (about 2 1/2 inches long). Even the shape can vary. The typical wheat spike seam is widespread, but it isn’t rare to find square or crescent-shaped culurgiones.
The IGP imprint
Regardless of the recipe or the chosen flavorings, one thing sets all the types of culurgiones in Ogliastra apart: an unmistakable flavor. That characteristic taste has made the culurgiones ogliastrini an icon of the land as well as one of the most appreciated specialties in Sardinia, to the extent that in 2015 it was added to the list of food products marked with IGP.
