Passport & Plate - Gnocchi with arugula and ricotta
Italy | Thursday, March 13, 2014 | 5 photos
Ingredients
400g gnocchi
170g ricotta cheese
50g butter
A bunch of arugula
2 spoons of grounded parmesan cheese
1 spoon of olive oil
salt
How to prepare this recipeBring a large pot of lightly salted water to boiling temperature. Shortly before the water starts to boil set on another hot plate a pan and start with the preparation of the sauce.
Heat the olive oil with the butter until the butter melts on middle temperature. Add the ricotta cheese and mix continuously until it gets creamy. Add after that the arugula, I don’t cut it because it melts, but if you don’t like long pieces cut it in two or three pieces. Add a bit salt, mix it, and taste it if it’s enough salty. Leave it on very low temperature and mix from time to time.
By that time the water in the pot should be boiling already, add the gnocchi, they will fall down. Gnocchi are ready when they appear on the water surface. They don’t go up all at the same time. Take out those which are already on the top with a slotted spoon, and add them to the sauce that is still on the hot plate.
The gnocchi usually need not more than 2 minutes to go up on the surface. When you have added them all to the sauce, add 2 spoons of the gnocchi water and mix the gnocchi well with the sauce, add two spoons of parmesan cheese and mix again, you can raise the temperature a bit, but not too much. If the sauce is not too liquid, you can remove the pan with the gnocchi from the hot plate after half a minute or a minute.
Check the photos while cooking, if you see the same then it’s all right :) . Trust your instincts but, most of all, your nose. Don't add extra parmesan on top of it, they're already delicious as they are. Serve and enjoy.
The story behind this recipeGnocchi with arugula and ricotta cheese (Gnocchi con rucola e ricotta)
The gnocchi are small balls made out of flour and potatoes, you can find them on the stand for pasta in grocery shops. Why this recipe? I have found it long time ago, I rarely cook the same meal twice, because I like to taste new recipes. But there are those recipes which are so good that deserve to remain in my recipes box, because they are just too delightful and conquest my respect for eternity. :)
I love watching one historical program, “Ulisse il piacere della scoperta”, there the guy talks about historical periods of Italy, he also explains what people actually ate during that time, it makes me think about how some of the classical Italian recipes were born, very often great recipes made out of the lack of various products due to poverty - like spaghetti all’aglio e olio (spaghetti with garlic and oil).
Domenico Modugno, the singer of the song Volare, used to say “there were times when I hadn’t eaten for days (because of no money) then one day I would have a huge plate of spaghetti (a simple one, like aglio e olio), but those were the happiest years of my life”
My recipe is a simple one, not very popular, I haven’t heard anyone talking about it, but the taste is fantastic.
The secret of the Italian kitchen is that it uses simple ingredients. The simplicity of the plates does not mean they are simple to be cooked, on the contrary. The less ingredients you use in a recipe, the less chances you have to make it excellent, you have only the quality of the ingredients and your skills in the execution.
It's because of this that in Naples they say that to understand if a pizza baker is good, you have to "measure him on a marinara", as the marinara is the simplest pizza, made just with tomato, garlic, oil and oregano.
