RICOTTA GNOCCHI
- 1 lb (454g) fresh ricotta cheese, whole milk
- 2 large (100g) whole eggs, chilled and lightly beaten
- 1/4 cup (56g) fresh whole butter, divided
- 1 cup (100g) parmesan cheese, finely grated and divided
- 1 cup (103.38g) LC-Mashed Potatoes Mix
- salt and fresh cracked pepper, to taste
- Make sure your ricotta is dry. Place it in a colander over a bowl, wrapped in plastic wrap to drip-dry over night.
- The next day, push your ricotta through a fine meshed sieve, to make sure it’s smooth. Use the back of a plastic spatula to push it through.
- Melt 1 tbsp of your butter.
- Add your eggs, melted butter, a dash of salt, mashed potatoes and ¼ cup of parmesan cheese. Mix well.
- Form your dough into small dumplings, You can do this by rolling long logs in parmesan cheese, then cutting the logs into smaller dumplings. You can use a spoon and drop each dumpling into grated parmesan. You can also use a very small ice cream scoop for it (chances are, you won’t have this, though). Here’s what I did: I put the dough into a pastry bag, without a tip. I also set up a platter with freshly grated (the finest grate) parmesan cheese. Then, I placed the pastry bag in one hand, with a steak knife in the other. I extruded the dough out of the tip, while using the steak knife to cut the dough-stream every inch. This created a quick succession of small inch long cylinders, each dropping into random spots on the parmesan. I did this until I was out of dough.
- Place the formed dumplings onto a platter coated with the remaining 3/4 cup of parmesan cheese. Make sure the dumplings are well coated with the cheese. Refrigerate the dumplings for 30 minutes up to overnight.
- Boil a large pot of salted water. Once the water is boiling, turn it down to a very slow simmer.
- Add your gnocchi to the water, carefully. Don’t just dump them in. These are delicate. Carefully pick them up and add them one at a time, or in small batches of 5 or 6. They will sink. Try and add them all over a 60 second period.
- Once they’ve all been added, let them cook for 5 minutes. Never let the water boil. It should be very hot, but not boiling. The gnocchi should start floating after about 1 to 2 minutes. Continue to let them cook for 3 or so more minutes, for a total of 5.
- With a slotted spoon, carefully lift the gnocchi out of the water and place them into a strainer, so they can dry. If you’re too aggressive with these, they will fall apart. Be gentle.
- In a large sauté pan, melt the remaining butter over medium heat. The moment any of the butter begin to turn a very light shade of tan, carefully add a few gnocchi. Toss them in the pan to coat them with butter. Add a few more, toss them around. Add a new more, etc. You want them to fry in the butter. You may need to do this in two batches. A little color on the butter can add a nice flavor.
- Once they are fried, remove them from the pan and serve them with marinara sauce, or simply fried in butter, with maybe a little sage and topped with grated parmesan cheese as a garnish!