Daring Cooks Challenge May 2009 - Gnocchi di Ricotta

This is the first ever Daring Cooks Challenge, and it feels good to have joined the Daring Kitchen community just in time to participate!

The recipe of Gnocchi di Ricotta was brought by Ivonne of Creampuffs in Venice and Lisa of La Mia Cucina, the two founders of the Daring Bakers Challenge.

They picked it in The Zuni Cafè Cookbook .

The recipe itself is very simple: take 1lb/450gr of ricotta, mix it with 2 large cold eggs, 1tbsp/15gr of butter and 1/2oz/about 15gr of grated Parmigiano. Spices, herbs and/or lemon zest are optional.

Form the gnocchi on a bed of flour (they're very delicate and need to be handled very lightly), boil them for a few minutes and then you can use them straight away or sautè them in a sauce of your choice.

We were incouraged to make our own ricotta, but spoiled as I am, I have a lot of cheese factories nearby, so ricotta is great tasting, available and cheap. By the way, ricotta isn't technically a cheese, because it doesn't come from milk directly, but from whey, the residue of production of some other, non acidic, cheese.

Ready as it is, it still has to be dried, or you will fail miserably and find yourself with the mess of the Big Frittata Of Ricotta (been there, done that). So it's better to leave the ricotta on a cheesecloth or on a strainer in the fridge, overnight.





After mixing, I preferred to form the gnocchi not by hand, but using a decorating bag to lay down those "worms" and then cut them with a serrated knife. It helps if you leave the ready and filled bag in the fridge for awhile.


After boiling them I left them apart while preparing the Parmigiano&Saffran coupelles in which I meant to serve them.





I had always read about how easy it is to make them, how you're just supposed to sprinkle two tablespoons of grated cheese in a pan and Voilà!, the coupelle is ready to be formed!


Mine were not made by themselves: if I used a spatula or some palette knife to take them up, they would just curl up like a vampire under the sun. If I took them with my fingers (I take the *Daring* part very literally!) I would feel a lot of pain (who guessed?).


Until it just dawned on me that parchment paper is such a good thing that if you just put a piece of it on the pan, and the cheese on that, you are done in a matter of seconds.


Gnocchi were sautèd in some butter with asparagus and ham, placed in the Parmigiano coupelles and that was the end of it.





As I did this early in the month, I kept thinking of some other version, and I came up with two variations using spinach and saffran, that would have to be matched with saffran and spinach butter, respectively.

I had the idea of styling it as a positive/negative photography, I've had the image on my mind for weeks.
Thing is, butter turns out to get a very different texture if you mix it with saffran rather than with spinach, so my idea didn't see the light.

Not too bad for a blooper, though.