Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking - Marcella Hazan [125]
If using thawed frozen leaf spinach: Cook in a covered pan with salt for about 5 minutes. Drain it, when cool squeeze all the moisture out of it that you can, and chop it coarse.
2. Put the butter and onion in a small skillet, and turn the heat on to medium. Cook and stir the onion until it becomes colored pale gold, then add the chopped prosciutto or ham. Cook for just a few seconds, long enough to stir 2 or 3 times and coat the meat well.
3. Add the cooked, chopped spinach and some salt, and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently.
4. Turn out the entire contents of the skillet into a bowl, and when the spinach has cooled down to room temperature, add the ricotta and flour, and stir with a wooden spoon, mixing the ingredients well. Add the egg yolks, grated Parmesan, and a tiny grating—about ⅛ teaspoon—of nutmeg, and mix with the spoon until all the ingredients are evenly amalgamated. Taste and correct for salt.
5. Make small pellets of the mixture, shaping them quickly by rolling them in the palm of your hand. Ideally they should be no bigger than ½ inch across, but if you find it troublesome to make them that small, you can try for ¾ inch. The smaller the better, because they cook more quickly and favor a better distribution of sauce. If the mixture sticks to your palm, dust your hands lightly with flour.
6. If serving with sauce: Drop the gnocchi, a few at a time, into 4 to 5 quarts of boiling, salted water. When the water returns to a boil, cook for 3 or 4 minutes, then retrieve them with a colander scoop or a large slotted spoon, and transfer to a warm serving platter. Spread over them some of the sauce you are using. Drop more gnocchi in the pot and repeat the whole operation. When all the gnocchi are done, pour the rest of the sauce over them, turn them rapidly to coat them well, and serve at once, with grated Parmesan on the side.
If serving in soup: Bring 2 quarts of Basic Homemade Meat Broth, prepared as directed, to a boil. Drop in all the gnocchi and cook for 3 to 4 minutes after the broth returns to a boil. Ladle into soup plates and serve with grated Parmesan on the side. When served in soup, gnocchi go further, and the recipe above should produce 6 satisfactory servings.
Recommended sauce Tomato Sauce with Heavy Cream may be the most appealing, both in flavor and appearance; another excellent combination is with Butter and Sage Sauce. Spinach and Ricotta Gnocchi are delicious as soup dumplings, served in Basic Homemade Meat Broth.
Gratinéed Spinach and Ricotta Gnocchi
For 4 servings
The gnocchi from this recipe
A bake-and-serve dish
3 tablespoons butter plus more butter for greasing the pan
½ cup freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese, plus additional cheese at the table
1. Preheat oven to 375°.
2. Thickly smear the baking dish with butter.
3. Drop the gnocchi, a few at a time, into 4 to 5 quarts of boiling, salted water. When the water returns to a boil, cook for 2 or 3 minutes, then retrieve them with a colander scoop or a large slotted spoon, and transfer to the baking dish. Drop more gnocchi in the pot and repeat the procedure described above, until you have got all the gnocchi cooked and in the baking dish.
4. Melt the 3 tablespoons of butter in a small saucepan and pour it over the gnocchi, distributing it evenly. Sprinkle the ½ cup grated Parmesan on top.
5. Bake on the uppermost rack of the preheated oven until the cheese melts, about 5 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to settle for several minutes, then serve at table directly from the baking dish with grated Parmesan on the side.
Baked Semolina Gnocchi
THE BATTER for semolina gnocchi, which in Italy are often called gnocchi alla romana, uses the yellow, coarsely ground flour of hard or durum wheat.
The problem some cooks have with semolina gnocchi is that in the baking, the batter runs together and they become shapeless. This usually happens because it has not been cooked long enough with the milk. I have found the batter requires at least 15 minutes of cooking and stirring