Gnocchi - the Italian dumpling made with flour and ricotta

Prepare your favourite simple tomato sauce. While it is cooking, blend 250g of ricotta/fromage frais/quark with one or two tablespoons of finely grated parmesan cheese and a good pinch of salt. Then add flour, start with perhaps 100g and keep adding until the consistency is still somewhat moist, but not sticky and definitely not dry. Cut the dough into half, roll it into a long thin roll of about 1-1.5 cm diameter on a floured surface and cut into 1cm pieces. Drop into gently simmering water and leave until the pieces rise to the surface. Fish out, drop into your tomato sauce, leave to soak for a couple of minutes, then serve with a generous amount of parmesan cheese, and salt and pepper to taste.

This is a good sized lunch for 2 people.

Notes: the flour I use for dumplings is mostly Cake and Pastry Flour but occasionally I repurpose Atta flour. It has great properties for shortcrust and dumplings too. The gnocchi swell a bit more with the Atta flour than with the Cake and Pastry and I would perhaps leave them slightly longer in the water.

If the ricotta or quark is very wet, I leave it in a cheesecloth for about ten minutes while I prepare the sauce. Photos show good sized gnocchi made with Cake and Pastry flour, simmering water and tomato with vegetable sauce, and the last picture are Atta flour gnocchi in plain tomato sauce.

Added by: michele