Ricotta Gnocchi

I love making food from scratch that most people don't think to make at home--they're so much more accesible in the supermarkets. Stuff like butter, jam, and pasta are among these food products.

Buttttttttt....they can be pretty labor intensive, and they won't always come out the way you want.

Take, for example, my first experience making fettucine. I had my snazzy new pasta attachment for my KitchenAid mixer, and spent all day lovingly making the dough, rolling it out, and cutting it.

And then after all of that labor, I overcooked it, and had to endure mushy pasta for dinner....

So you can see why I may be scared to make gnocchi. The traditional potato type seems laborious, with a high chance of failure, and so I don't want to make it yet. I'm scared of wasting my time and ending up dissapointed.

When I saw this recipe for Ricotta Gnocchi, simple and no potatoes involved, I was really excited!

Plus, it's from The Salty Spoon, which is an AMAZING blog...so I knew this had to be good.

I made a few changes to the recipe - subbed half of the parmesan cheese she uses with grated smoked gouda, and made double the amount. I like the flavor the gouda gave to it (although I only substituted because I was out of parmesan cheese made with halal/vegetarian/microbial rennet, and this was the available halal hard cheese), but I do want to try it with all of the parmesan soon.

Which isn't a problem, because I will be making this a lot! The dough was so pleasant to work with, and everything was simple, straightforward. Airy, fluffy pillows of taste. nom nom nom

Enjoy!

Recipe from The Salty Spoon:

Ricotta Gnocchi

My notes on this recipe:

1) Drain the ricotta in a cheese cloth hanging over the sink (you can also line a collander with the cheese cloth, but this way is more effective - it lets the weight of the cheese really force the liquid out...see picture for what I'm talking about)

2) Keep the bowl of ricotta dough in the refrigerator while you work with each ball of dough.


3) You can replace half of the parmesan cheese with finely grated smoked gouda, it adds a nice smoky flavor to the gnocchi. I served this in marinara sauce, but if made with the gouda I think it would be amazinggg with some browned butter over it.

4) Pour all of the gnocchi that you're going to be cooking together into the pot at once! That way they'll cook evenly...since you're timing it from 2 minutes after the float, you want them to all float at about the same time. Just be very careful of splashing hot water!

5) Double of this recipe can serve about 5 HUNGRY people for dinner.


6) This is fun to roll out. Woooooo!