RCP: Ricotta Gnocchi

This is the first recipe we’ve tried from Tessa Kiros' Apples for Jam, and it was an absolute winner – messy, but delicious, and very easy to make. It made an adequate sufficiency for three!

* 500g fresh ricotta
* 100g plain flour
* 2 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese
* pinch of Malden salt

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil and have your sauce ready to go, as the gnocchi need to be eaten as soon as they’re cooked. We served ours with Pete’s tomato sauce, garnished with a dollop of homemade pesto.

2. In a large mixing bowl, combine all the ingredients and mix gently with a wooden or silicone spoon. You might need to get a clean hand in to gingerly encourage it to come together. Don’t overwork the dough.

3. With lightly floured hands (you want to add as little flour as possible, or the gnocchi will be tough), shape the dough into thin logs on a large sheet of parchment paper. This is messy work!

4. With a sharp knife, cut the logs into small dumplings, and drop them into the boiling water. Allow them to cook for about 45 seconds to a minute, or until they float to the surface. Scoop them out with a slotted spoon, and serve immediately with the sauce and a dusting of grated parmesan.

(Posted with more photos on my blog)

[Jenise]

Wow--without a testimonial, I'd be afraid to trust that flour-to-cheese ratio. What's the final texture like? Ricotta has a graininess that I will admit I'm not particularly wild about, does it smooth out?

That's interesting, Jenise, because our fresh ricotta is very smooth and not at all cottage cheese like or grainy? Texture of the gnocchi when made like that is very soft and "cloud-like", a bit reminiscent of good potato gnocchi.

Oh, Boy! Ah... Oh, Girl!

Yum does that sound and look delicious! I will have to seek out the very smooth type of ricotta that you used. The stuff I normally see is, I am trying to think of a description, maybe very, very small curd and not smooth.

Thanks for posting this, *C*.

[Jenise]

Celia, did you make your own homemade ricotta?

My go to gnocchi recipe is a ricotta based gnocchi from Appleman's A16 cookbook. I use the standard "grainy" ricotta. The gnocchi prepared with it do not exhibit any graininess.

Jenise, I don't make my own ricotta, we have a really good source for it nearby. It's on the list of things to do next though!

Here's a photo of our ricotta, still warm. We put it in a sieve to drain before refrigerating, and the texture becomes quite smooth.

[Jenise]

Thanks Greg, that's a helpful data point. And thanks for the pic, Celia--looks lovely. Lucky you to be able to buy it fresh and "still warm".

For any who might be interested, the ingredients for the A16 ricotta gnocchi are:

2 Cups fresh ricotta, well drained
2 Tbsp EVOO
1 Egg yolk
1 Egg slightly beaten
1 Cup "OO" flour (for the caputo tipo "OO" flour I used it required closer to 1 1/4 cups)
Kosher salt

Appleman recommends using as little flour as possible to pull the dough together to keep the gnocchi light. You cook a piece of the dough to test, and if it falls apart, you add a little more flour, and try again.

This recipe produces a flavorful and light gnocchi.

[Jenise]

For any who might be interested, the ingredients for the A16 ricotta gnocchi are:

2 Cups fresh ricotta, well drained
2 Tbsp EVOO
1 Egg yolk
1 Egg slightly beaten
1 Cup "OO" flour (for the caputo tipo "OO" flour I used it required closer to 1 1/4 cups)
Kosher salt

Appleman recommends using as little flour as possible to pull the dough together to keep the gnocchi light. You cook a piece of the dough to test, and if it falls apart, you add a little more flour, and try again.

This recipe produces a flavorful and light gnocchi.

That's a higher flour-to-cheese ratio than Celia's recipe--easier to handle, I'd expect. Would love to try both and compare the results: it's a very intriguing concept.

[Jenise]

Celia,

Finally made your ricotta gnocchi last night. Fantastic! Also made a few in Greg H's style--more flour (2:1 vs your 5:1), and bound with egg. Liked both pretty equally and think I might like something between the two best of all. Toyed with using two spoons to make quenelle shapes and just breaking off lumps by hand, and decided that the latter was the most expedient and had a lovely rusticity. Sure provided a fun afternoon of playing with food, and a great dinner at the end of it all.

Thanks again for this post.

So glad you liked it, Jenise!