Nuts for Gnudi!

[sara]

I recently had the fabulous ricotta gnudi with fried sage leaves at Spotted Pig in NYC and am now craving them. The recipes I've found online are for spinach and ricotta gnudi only; but I'd like to do it without the spinach. Not sure how much to reduce the other ingrediants by tho. Does anyone have a non-spinach gnudi recipe they'd share? thanks!

[MobyP]

This strays into the realm of French style gnocchi. I think there's a Elizabeth David version somewhere. Basically, for every pound of ricotta, use one egg, 1-2 cups of parmagiano, salt and pepper to taste.

If the ricotta is very wet, place it in a cloth-lined sieve for a few hours.

You have to be careful, as this is a relatively unstable mixture. Mix well, then use two spoons to form quenelles (you can use your hands, but it might get a little messy). Place each quenelle on a tray sprinkled liberally with semolina (to stop them from sticking together). Poach them in sub-boiling water until they start to float - a couple of minutes.

You might want to test a couple first and see how they turn out. If they feel a little loose, you could mix in a second egg, adjust seasoning etc.

Serve with melted butter, fried sage, fresh black pepper, and parmagiano.

BTW - you can alter these in a number of ways. I've mixed in asparagus puree (blanch until soft, then blitz in a food processor, add to mix), but you could use a spoon or two of pesto, or tapenade (for an olive taste), or make a walnut sauce with olives and parmagiano, and use some of that, then serve with walnuts, or serve plain with some pancetta, or soak and puree some sun-dried tomatoes and add those etc...

Edited June 6, 2004 by MobyP (log)

[MobyP]

I saw some buffalo ricotta in the market this morning (and some quail), so I thought I'd give it a try myself (as I realised it was also pretty good for my diet).

So - making a half recipe - I mixed 250g drained ricotta with 1/2 a cup of pecorino sardo and 1/2 cup of grated parmagiano, an egg yolk. salt and pepper.

Then, using 2 spoons, I made rough quenelles and placed them on a well-floured (semolina) tray.

I found a J Oliver trick of rolling the gnocchi in the semolina, and leave for a couple of hours to firm up.

I'll let you know how it turns out.

[sara]

Wow-thanks so much; especially for the photos!! These look a little bigger than the ones I've seen, but I can make them smaller I'm sure.

[MobyP]

Well - they certainly were incredibly light - and very delicate; a couple disintergrated from man-handling (unfortunately no pics). I suspect that the spinach would give them just a little more substance, a heft. Without the spinach, next time I would add 50g or so of flour - or maybe a little mashed potato.

Ok - I looked it up. Bugialli (who I think reinvented the nudi idea) uses 5 egg yolks for every half pound (225g) of ricotta (plus large quantities of spinach, parmagiano and gorgonzola) - and then rolls them in flour. So - if you want to stay away from the spinach, you'll need to up the egg count, anyway. Although Jamie Oliver doesn't use any eggs - so it's up to you!

Hope this helps.

[sara]

Hi

Well, I ended up using some fresh spinach--and I had regular flour, not semolina. But I'd say my gnudi came out pretty darn delicious!!

I used 14 oz of fresh cow's milk ricotta (from the DC farmer's market), 3 egg yolks, 2 whites, 1.75 cups of flour, 3 T parmesean, about 1/2 lb chopped spinach....Rolled 'em with spoons then with hands, in flour, cooked--took a little longer than I'd expected to rise, but they floated up eventually.

Served with fried sage leaves and brown butter sauce. And a tomato, asparagus, squash salad. Yum!