Monday, May 19, 2014

Ricotta Gnocchi


I love to make food at home that I would order in a restaurant because you get an idea of how much you are getting ripped off and how much effort goes into something. I find most Italian/American foods to be easily reproduced at home without too much trouble. I think a lot of Asian foods are worth going out for because the variety and number of spices used will be beyond what most people have at home.
Most people know of gnocchi and associate them with potato's. There are actually a ton of varieties including cheese based gnocchi. For this batch I went traditional and didn't add much to the gnocchi to flavour it. I let the sauce bring the taste and used the gnocchi to transport it. Next time I think I will kick up the ingredients in the gnocchi and have a lighter sauce.
I don't have a very large cookbook collection because my interests change faster than I can research and buy a book, but I do have a couple that I use every once in a while. The first cookbook in my collection was a Christmas gift of Mario Batali's Malto Italiano. In it is a Ricotta Gnocchi with Sausage and Fennel that I have had dog eared for a decade. I took the gnocchi recipe and swapped out his ricotta recommendation for my own homemade cheese which ended up being a perfect swap (I didn't add the dill that is in my original recipe).



Ingredients:

  • 1 1/2 pounds cheese (I used 8L of 2% milk to get this much cheese)
  • 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
  • 2 large eggs (beaten)
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp ground black pepper
  • 1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
Directions:

  1. Drain the cheese until it is dryer than wet.
  2. In a large mixing bowl mix all the ingredients together.
  3. A soft dough will form.
  4. I rolled tbsp sized balls and rolled them off the back of a fork to get the ridges.
  5. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.
  6. Boil the gnocchi for 7 - 8 mins until they are cooked through.
  7. We sauced and served immediately.

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