Ricotta Gnocchi

This is an old recipe that was released by Betty Bossi in 1992. The ricotta gnocchi are not as heavy as the more traditional potato gnocchi and make for an excellent appetizer.









Appetizer for 2 people:

Ingredients:

1 whole egg
1 egg yolk
200 g ricotta
50 g grated parmesan cheese
some more parmesan to sprinkle over at the end
30 g flour
30 g semolina (availabe by weight at Whole Foods)
salt and pepper
nutmeg (preferrably freshly ground)
2-3 tablespoons butter
1 handful of sage, chopped


Instructions:

Put egg and egg yolk into a bowl, mix well. Add ricotta, bit by bit and mix with the eggs. Put parmesan, salt, pepper and nutmeg (to taste) and mix everything.

In a seperate small bowl, mix the flour and semolina together and add it to the ricotta paste.

Leave it sitting there for at least 1/2 hour.

To make nice looking gnocchi, a decorating bag works great. Sur-la-Table (one of my favorite cook stores) sells them. You don't need to buy a whole set, just the bag and one metal piece to insert will do fine.
If you don't want to buy the bag, you can also use a spoon instead to create gnocchi-like shapes.

Bring water to a boil in a big pan and add some salt. Reduce the heat so the water only boils very gently.
Put the ricotta paste into your bag and press out about 2 cm long pieces of gnocchi directly into the water. Use a knife to cut off the gnocchi from the bag. This works best with two people. One person squeezing out the gnocchi from the bag, the other one using the knife to make the gnocchi fall out of the bag. Don't stir! The gnocchi are very delicate.

In the meantime, melt some butter in a small skillet, add the sage and sauté over medium heat until the sage becomes a little bit crispy but not burnt!

The gnocchi are ready once they're floating on top of the water (about 3 mins total). Carefully remove them from the water. A big spoon with holes or a skimmer to drain the water works best.

Arrange the gnocchi on plates and pour the butter/sage sauce on top. Sprinkle with parmesan. I thought the Bogle Merlot went well with this dish.