Photos: Passport & Plate - Ricotta Gnocchi

agathab — Tue, 17 Feb 2015 21:16:00 GMT

Ingredients
Gnocchi:
700g Ricotta
1kg of plain flour (900g for gnocchi, 100g for sprinkling)
4 eggs
Salt

Sauce:
1kg of lean minced meat
Handful of oregano
2 onions
1 capsicum
2 teaspoons of chilli flakes
1 bottle of passata sauce
Salt

Parmesan Cheese for serving

Serves: 10

How to prepare this recipe
Gnocchi
1. Place all the flour in a bowl and create a little well in the centre to place 350g of your ricotta and 3 eggs. Combine slowly and make sure all the ingredients bind. If your ingredients are still dry and not combining like they should add the other egg and remaining ricotta.
2. Once all the ingredients have bound you should have a moist dough, let it sit in a dry but cool area in the kitchen for around 10 minutes ( look at the sauce instructions below now is a good time to start on it) , this will let the ricotta properly bind in the dough and let any additional moisture escape
3. Separate the dough into small balls and roll out into a snake like shape, use extra flour so the gnocchi don't dry out
4. From here cut along your rolled out dough, so that you have little squares ( note: when you cook they will expand so the smaller the better) again using flour to avoid drying out
5. Once you have cut up into squares, using a gnocchi board to curl. Place your small piece of gnocchi and roll horizontally so that you create lines on the morsel. If you don't have a board you need to use a wooden surface ( chopping board) and use your index finger to indent into the morsel and roll toward your body you should have a curled little gnocchi like nonna used to make.
6. Start to boil the water and add salt. Place your gnocchi in the water and cook until they float to the surface. (around 5 minutes)

Sauce:
1. Finely dice your onion and capsicum
2. Place your mince in a hot pot with olive oil, let it brown and add the onions and capsicum which have been finely diced.
3. Add salt, chilli, oregano
3. Add a bottle of passata and let it simmer for 30-40 minutes ( so start making this when you let the pasta rest)

Assembling:
1. Once the gnocchi have floated to the top, remove from the water and add a good spoonful of sauce.
2. Top off with parmesan and mangia!

The story behind this recipe
In 2012 I moved to Milano Italy for my year of cultural exchange with University. I had studied Italian in high-school and I always had a fascination with the country. Needless to say the year was a real culinary delight where I learnt how to make some traditional sauces, ate my way through the North to the South of the boot and made some really great friendships.

I had however left my family behind in Australia and upon my return, my mother made me this ricotta gnocchi dish, there is nothing better than a mother's cooking. Unless it's grandmothers cooking and this dish was passed down to her from her grandmother ( my great-grandmother) , but we. Both my parents are of Chilean background, but my great-grandmother was from a tiny Italian town called Provincia Potenza, I only met her once ( when I was 2) but my mother remembers the small italian woman kneeding and making the kitchen smell like Italy.

So everytime I eat this meal it takes me back to that year abroad, but it also feels nice that this recipe has been passed down through 4 generations of women and that I really had that little Italian thing in me all along - perhaps that's where the fascination all started!

gnocchi della nonna

Photos: Passport & Plate - Ricotta Gnocchi