One of these days I’ll do a little step-by-step for traditional Sardinian malloreddus, literally “little bulls”, also known as gnocchetti sardi, or, little Sardinian gnocchi. Gnocchi means knots, of the sort found in wood, though some say it’s a derivation of nocca, or knuckle. Either way, I didn’t exactly make malloreddus, because these are far too long – they should only be about an inch or less in length, and the sauce is anything but traditional. Still, it was a delicious dish, and a way to use up some leftovers, so why not make, eat, and share it?

Basically, I just made a semolina pasta dough (roughly 1 whole egg and 1 yolk per cup of flour, but much depends on your flour). Rolled it out thin and cut strips that were about 1/2″ wide and a little over 2″ long, then curled them on a gnocchi board.

I had some leftover roast chicken, which I chopped up, and separate chopped up the skin. I had the stem from a broccoli, which I peeled and then chopped up. Some minced garlic, some butter, and some dry seaweed (hijiki in this case). The idea of a seaweed brown butter came from one of the cooking competitions I occasionally indulge in – right now that means it was either the current season of Masterchef Australia, or the recently finished Top Chef season.

Brown the chicken skin in a skillet until it’s rendered out all its fat and gets fairly dark golden brown and crispy. Set is aside to drain on a paper towel.

Add the butter, garlic, and seaweed to the skillet and cook until the butter foams.

Add the broccoli stems and cook until soft. At this point I dropped the pasta into boiling salted water – it’s fresh pasta so it’s only going to take a couple of minutes to cook.

Add the chicken – keeping in mind that it’s already cooked, so it’s really just being heated through – I added it maybe a minute before adding the pasta.

Add the pasta and a ladleful of the pasta water and cook until it’s absorbed and the pasta is well coated with the seaweed garlic butter. Adjust seasoning if needed – I did a few grinds of pepper, there was no need for salt – it picks up a fair amount from the seaweed and the pasta water.

And, serve, garnished with the crispy chicken skin.