Test Kitchen #22: Ricotta Gnocchi

I wish I could come up with a loftier explanation why I decided to choose gnocchi as our next text kitchen. It is in no way a summer type food. It is not light and refreshing or made with healthy ingredients like fruits or vegetables. It is more so, a comfort food. One that should probably be reserved for a cozy fall or winter afternoon. This summer, however, hasn't been real light and refreshing itself with our many dreary days, so maybe it was as good a time as any. Perhaps the best reason is that I've never made homemade pasta before, it was simple and fun. Done and done.

Even more puzzling than why I chose to make gnocchi, was that out of all the traditional potato-based recipes and being a HUGE fan of the potato myself, I chose the one recipe that had absolutely no potato in it at all. (For those non-believers, the potato really is an awesome vegetable. Fried, baked, mashed, tots, hashed; it's so versatile. And best of all: potato as soft pillows of pasta-like fluff surrounded in your favorite sauce. There. I've said my peace.) This Ricotta Gnocchi is made primarily with ricotta cheese, grated Parmesan and flour. The original recipe came from the ever popular allrecipes.com. The steps below have only a few adjustments, the biggest being that we ignored the sauce recipe included and just made a giant pot of Dad's homemade sauce.

Ingredients:
1 (8 ounce) container of part skim ricotta cheese
2 eggs
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 cup all-purpose flour, or as needed
handful of shredded mozzarella

Steps:
1. Stir together the ricotta cheese, eggs, Parmesan cheese, salt, pepper, and garlic powder in a large bowl until evenly combined. Mix in 1 cup of flour. Add additional flour if needed to form a soft dough.

2. Divide the dough into 3 or 4 pieces, and roll into 1/2-inch-thick ropes on a floured surface. Cut each rope into 1-inch pieces, and place on a lightly floured baking sheet. Try pressing each piece with the bottom of a fork to give a ridged texture. Place in the refrigerator until ready to use.


3. When your sauce is ready, bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil over high heat. Boil the gnocchi until they float to the surface, 1 to 2 minutes, then drain.

4. To assemble the dish, transfer warm gnocchi into a large serving bowl. Ladel some sauce liberally over the top. Stir in the mozzarella cheese.

Verdict:
The dough was very wet and needed more flour to become kneadable, which could have been due to the high amount of humidity in the air on this particular day. Perhaps just another reason why it didn't quite make sense for me to choose this recipe on a hot and sweaty afternoon.

The taste and texture was quite good. Not quite as melt-in-your-mouth as others I've had, but these were also not made with potato, so maybe that's how it should be. The dough was a little sticky and stuck to the edges of my teeth when I took a bite. I also noticed that for the amount of cheese in the recipe, the flavors didn't come through as I expected. If I were to try this one again, I would probably dial up some seasonings and definitely make it on a less humid day. This probably would also be a good dough to try our luck with some homemade ravioli.

While I was still proud of myself for making a pasta from scratch, my sense is that the secret to any great pasta, is mastering the art of the dough. Later that day, Dad emailed that they had whole wheat flour in the cabinet and that we could have tried the recipe using that instead for a healthier option. There will be other afternoons. Let's save it for later on this winter.

P.S. Since Dad was overseeing the production of his excellent sauce, I was left to make the dough and roll little gnocchis on my own. With my hands completely covered in dough, there would be no way for me to prevent Dad from snagging up the camera and taking some video of me for a change. I owe him this one of, I'm sure, many to come. Further witness the evidence of that humid day in my crazy frizzy hair.