Gnocchi lesson number 2, no potato ones
ingredients for 4 servings (cost about 2,5 € pp)
- Salt
- 1 ricotta box (250 g)
- 400 g spinach leaves
- EV olive oil
- 50 g parmigiano
- 1 large egg
- 50 g flour + more for the surface
- EV olive oil
- Corfiot nubulo or other excellent quality cold cut
- Purple basil
- Black pepper
Today´s gnocchi will be different. We are gonna prepare them without potato, so they will be softer and more difficult to form them. I would suggest you before continuing to this recipe, to give a look at our basic gnocchi article, which you will find here, in order to understand the basic principles of this preparation.
The first thing we have to do is to prepare the spinach, blanching them in salted water. When soft, we drain them and we pat them dry, trying to remove as much water as possible. We mince them very well. We keep aside and we wait to cool completely.
We put the ricotta in a fine sieve, we lightly salt it and we let it get rid of its liquids for about an hour. Humidity is our enemy when we prepare gnocchi.
We mix ricotta, flour, spinach, beaten egg, parmigiano and a pinch of salt. If we have available time we put the dough for 20 minutes in the freezer. With a spoon (as the dough will be too wet) we start cutting pieces of dough and pouring them into the flour. We form them with the hands. We let the gnocchi stand for about 15 mins.
We boil the gnocchi in batches of 10 – 15, removing them 20-30 seconds after they come to the water surface. Meanwhile we cut the cold cut in dice.
When all the gnocchi are ready, we toss them in hot olive oil and we put them in plates. We add the cold cut, some black pepper and the basil leaves and we serve.
