Gnudi is gnocchi made with ricotta rather than potatoes. It is one of my favourite Italian dumplings. This recipe will yield about 36-40 pieces. I made it initially with all A/P flour, but I have modified it to use part S/R flour to make the gnudi a little less dense. This is very good with my marinara sauce and would be great with a lemon butter sauce. Enjoy!
Angela's Basil and Garlic Gnudi
Lovely Italian dumplings that are light with just enough chew. Great with my marinara sauce! Recipe is right before this one or search "marinara".
Servings 4 8-10 gnudi
Equipment
- Large stock pot
- Large skillet
- Half Sheet pan, lined with parchment paper and floured
- A sauce to finish the gnudi in; I suggest my marinara sauce
Ingredients
- 1 cup whole milk ricotta, drained in a coffee filter + sieve for a few minutes get whole milk ONLY
- 1/2 cup S/R flour mix with A/P flour; you CAN use all A/P if you like
- 1/2 cup A/P flour +/- a cup; this amount will vary, depends on your dough
- 1/2 cup ground parmesan
- 2 eggs one whole and one yolk lightly beaten
- 1 Tbl garlic paste (this is found in Indian stores) OR paste 4 cloves of garlic
- 1 lemon zest of whole lemon, about 1 Tbl juice the rest of of juice will go into the cooking water
- dash ground nutmeg fresh if you've got it
- 2 tsp salt I use Dixie Crystal Kosher in all my recipes
- 2-3 Tbl fresh Basil, minced; use as much as you like Mint is excellent in this, too; I used both
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, add ricotta, parmesan, eggs and about half the flour mix. Stir.
- Add garlic, nutmeg, lemon zest, herbs and 1 Tbl lemon juice to mix and stir. Add flour slowly until the dough is just firm enough to handle. It will be loose, but it should not be too wet to handle. This can take as much as another half cup of flour - if so, add A/P flour to get the dough firm enough to handle.
- When the dough is just barely together enough to handle, put on a floured board and add flour until it is dry enough to roll into a rope of about 1" diameter. You'll have to divide the dough, it makes several ropes.
- Roll the dough into a 1" diameter rope then cut at about 1 - 1.5" intervals. This recipe should give you about 40 gnudi. Give or take. Put the dumplings on the floured parchment paper as you cut them. This should make about a full sheet pan of dumplings.
- Put the gnudi in the freezer for 15-30 minutes or the fridge for about half an hour to firm up.
- While the gnudi is chilling, get a large pot of water on to boil. Bring to a fast simmer and add 1 Tbl salt and the remaining juice of the lemon.
- Cook the gnudi in batches so as not to crowd the pot. The water should be boiling, but not rapidly. Stir the gnudi to keep it from sticking to the bottom of the pot. When they float, they are almost done. Give them a minute or two more once they float.
- To finish gnudi, you need to have the sauce ready and warm in a skillet. Use a slotted spoon or spider to retrieve the gnudi and put directly into the sauce. Simmer in the sauce for about 5 minutes to allow gnudi to absorb the flavour.
Notes
Have the sauce of your choice ready for the gnudi. I really loved them with my marinara sauce, but any tomato or even a lemon butter sauce would be great with these. Traditionally, gnocchi (the potato version of these) is served with a brown butter sage sauce - which would work if you used sage rather than basil.
Gnudi freeze very well. Just leave them on the sheet pan until frozen, then put in a freezer zip bag or food saver vacuum bag.