2012 Cooking Club Week 22: Spinach and Ricotta Gnocchi

Swampy

Hi,

I hope you all enjoy this recipe that I ripped off from some cookery website but it is an excellent dish. It is very easy to make, very light and delicious.

Being a last minute person as always, I only just made and ate it a couple of hours ago. Initially I was going to serve it with a sage butter sauce but there seems to be a sage drought across west Dublin.

I will give you the recipe for both the tomato sauce it was served with and how to make a quick sage butter sauce at the end.

I will give you the ingredients for 2 hungry people but I doubled up and made enough for four hungry.

Ingredients:
200g young spinach , washed
small handful parsley leaves, finely chopped ( I didn't have any)
1 garlic clove , crushed
140g ricotta
85g plain flour
2 eggs
100g freshly grated vegetarian Parmesan-style cheese , plus extra to serve
freshly grated nutmeg (i didn't have any handy today)
Ignore the Guinness, I just needed a drink.


Step 1.
Wilt the spinach however you wish. Steam in the bag, boil, cover in boiling water etc. The take the spinach out, wrap it in a clean tea towel and squeeze the bejesus out of it. You really want to remove as much water as possible.



Then chop finely.


Step2.
Put every ingredient into a bowl and mix together with a fork until properly mixed. Don't forget to season with salt and pepper.


Step3.
Using wet hands, form the stuff into balls the size of walnuts. Place of a big plate and put into the fridge for at least 30 mins.


Step4.
Have a large pot of salted boiling water. In the mean time have a dish in the oven to keep the gnocchi warm as you will be cooking in batches. Drop in around 8 gnocchi at a time into the boling water. They will sink to the bottom. Once they rise (about a min or 2) let them cook further for nearly a minute while floating on top then remove with a slotted spoon to the warming/serving dish. Repeat until all are cooked.


Step 5.
Top with sauce of choice and a bit more parmesan cheese.


Step 6.
Enjoy


Tomato Sauce:
Get 8 cloves of garlic and slice. Get two red onions and dice. Put together into a pan with a good glug or two of olive oil and cook until softened. Add whatever tomatoes you have in you fridge and two tins of chopped tomatoes. Salt and pepper. Cook away for a few mins on a good heat. Then blitz the mixture. Return to the pan and cook for 10 or more mins and let it thicken. Add sugar to balance the acidity where necessary. Boom. Job Done.

Sage Butter:

Get a big knob of butter, 125g or so. Melt in a pan until starting to brown, Throw in 6 or 7 sage leaves. Turn off heat. Stir through for a min or two then job done.

Chong

This looks Delish and I generally dont like spinach!

Faith

Definitely going to try this!

BaZmO*

I made this last night and it was delicious. In my haste, and going against the way I'd normally cook, I started the recipe without getting all the ingredients ready, and as a result I forgot to add the garlic and the egg. Luckily enough it didn't seem to make much of a difference.

Thanks OP



Sorry about the quality of the pic, I was all over the place last night.

_blank_

Made this tonight, very, very nice,

The gnocchi is really light, this is a really tasty dish.

Thumbs up!

Mr Simpson

I've a day off work tomorrow, think I might give this a go, looks delicious.

eviltwin

Made this for lunch, very easy to make and it was gorgeous, my very fussy two year old son ate it too so that's a huge thumbs up from me

Malari

Would you think the uncooked gnocchi would keep in the fridge for 24 hours or so? I want to have them tomorrow night but know I won't have time to do it all from scratch tomorrow!

Swampy

I would guess they would be fine.

Malari

Well we'll see tonight They are chilling out in the fridge as we speak.

Malari

Malari wrote: »

Well we'll see tonight They are chilling out in the fridge as we speak.

Delicious! I didn't bother with the tomato sauce, but couldn't get sage either (although apparently my dad's vegetable garden is teeming with the stuff), so just melted a knob of butter, threw in a little olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Beautiful served with salad leaves. I'll be making this again. Not least because I have leftover ricotta in the fridge I'm not sure what to do with :D

Aglomerado

I'm really looking forward to making these tonight, they look gorgeous! A quick question - just to save me another trip to the supermarket - would Philadelphia (instead of Ricotta) work for these? Or would it make a total hames of them?

Swampy

Aglomerado wrote: »

I'm really looking forward to making these tonight, they look gorgeous! A quick question - just to save me another trip to the supermarket - would Philadelphia (instead of Ricotta) work for these? Or would it make a total hames of them?

Don't know if you have made them or not but I think Philadelphia might not work. Its not the same texture as Ricotta. I would be interested to hear how you got on!

Aglomerado

Hi Swampy,
I managed to get some Ricotta after all, I was a bit iffy about using Philly, so decided to go in search of the proper ingredient.

And yes, they worked out perfectly. YUM. I'll be making these again!
Thanks.

LaChatteGitane

Thank you for a lovely recipe. Made this tonight with homegrown spinach and chard.









In the pics is my 75 yr old mother's portion. She'll probably have it 2 days in a row (maybe), telling me that I always make too much for her while licking every last bit from her plate.:cool:

Little Alex

We had this for dinner tonight. Really liked the way it turned out and like LaChatteGitane I made th portions too big. :pac: There's enough left over for tomorrow.

For the tomato sauce I used a carton of passata with a layer of a fennnel bulb and a rib of celery, both cut into small cubes.

Mellor

Ingredients bought, making this tomorrow.
If prefer a higher % of protein, so I'm going to half the quantities for the gnocci and make a mince/sauce mix.

Malari

Made this again last night, it's lovely!

annamcmahon

Does anyone know if these could be frozen before being cooked? I'd only be making them for myself

Mr Simpson

I'd say they'd be fine frozen, freeze them on a tray in your freezer, when they're completely frozen, transfer them to a ziploc or a container. This should stop them from sticking together.

Malari

Yes, I've frozen these before. I just put them in a tupperware with greaseproof paper between the layers.

They are an instant Cooking Club favourite in my house!

thebuzz

Guinness in a Bud glass? Shocking! Guinness should only ever be drank from a Guinness glass.

Good recipe though!

Faith

I made this tonight. I quite enjoyed the gnocchi themselves, although mine could have done with a bit of salt. I made a tomato sauce, and somehow it was horrible. I think it was poor quality tomatoes, but it ruined the dish for me. Thinking on it though, I don't think I'd serve a tomato sauce with it again because I think it's too heavy and overpowers the delicate flavour of the gnocchi.

Good recipe, but I think I'd try with a butter dressing or similar next time.

Princess Peach

Made these too but forgot to post! They were great. Think I made my gnocchi balls too big and they didn't cook as fast or we'll but we're still good. I served them with a garlic chilli butter sauce.

Roesy

Tried this this evening. Forgot to take any pics. Went down a treat. Will definitely make again. Thanks!

Cooperspale

Faith wrote: »

I made this tonight. I quite enjoyed the gnocchi themselves, although mine could have done with a bit of salt. I made a tomato sauce, and somehow it was horrible. I think it was poor quality tomatoes, but it ruined the dish for me. Thinking on it though, I don't think I'd serve a tomato sauce with it again because I think it's too heavy and overpowers the delicate flavour of the gnocchi.

Good recipe, but I think I'd try with a butter dressing or similar next time.

Tomatoes in Feb in Ireland are totally out of season and may be a reason for poor sauce. I'd use a good quality canned tomato until summer gets here. Otherwise a burnt sage butter, cheese sauce or garlic my be better option at this time of year

Faith

Cooperspale wrote: »

Tomatoes in Feb in Ireland are totally out of season and may be a reason for poor sauce. I'd use a good quality canned tomato until summer gets here. Otherwise a burnt sage butter, cheese sauce or garlic my be better option at this time of year

Oh, I did use tinned tomatoes, but just poor quality ones still!

quaalude

I just made this - delicious.
I used 50g Parmesan instead of 100g and it was plenty cheesy.
I didn't make a tomato sauce, I just put a little pesto over them.
Light, yet so satisfying.
Thanks OP!

nozzferrahhtoo

Tried this with frozen spinach tonight. Worked well enough but I would recommend anyone doing it to use fresh spinach. Frozen just stays a little bit too wet no matter what you do. Still good... but not as perfect as could be.

I made it with the tomato sauce but also made it in conjuction with potato gnocchi *recipe below*. I used the recipe in the OP for 2 people which for me yielded 14 balls. I was feeding 3 people. So I made 30 normal small potato ones too. I made two baking dishes of 7+15 balls each... covered it in the cooked tomato sauce from the op.... covered all that in grated parmasan + cheddar + pepper... and baked all that for a further 15 minutes.

I also got away with just one egg rather than 2... probably because frozen spinach reduces down to less than the weight recommended in the OP.

The result was mopped up in its entirety by the 3 of us barely leaving room for ice cream.

Potato Gnocchi:

cook 600ish grams of potatoes. Boil is fine but I find baking always adds a little something special to the flavour but takes much longer. Peel these and then grate on a normal cheese grater. Combine with 1 egg and some salt. Add 60g normal flour and mix to combine. then keep adding and combining flour in 30g batches until the dough does not stick to your hands TOO easy. 120 to 160g is usually enough. Break this into 4 lumps and roll them until an inch thick snake or thinner. Then slice the snakes into inch long pieces. As above boil until floating.

quaalude

quaalude wrote: »

I just made this - delicious.
I used 50g Parmesan instead of 100g and it was plenty cheesy.
I didn't make a tomato sauce, I just put a little pesto over them.
Light, yet so satisfying.
Thanks OP!

I've made these twice since (I love them!!), and I find - if you want to reduce the Parmesan to 50g, it's wise to add an extra 10g of flour.
I plan to try making it with finely chopped, cooked mushrooms next time instead of spinach - will report back.

quaalude

Just bumping this recipe - made it again at the weekend.
I served it with homemade pesto and a spinach salad.