Gnocchi. A potato thing. Italian, served for dinner with butter sauce and usually pale and nib-like in appearance. It’s not bad at all and it’s really hard to make it badly; you really have to have not paid the least bit of attention, ever, to make Gnocchi badly. So for all its popularity, could it be even more special?
Several years ago, I would dine regularly with someone who was a terror to cook with in the kitchen but had a great knack for finding twists in recipes to experiment with. One day, “how about Ricotta Cheese Gnocchi?” Just recently, the memory of this experiment returned to me; it was really good. Back then, we had added diced garlic to enhance the Gnocchi and that was a good idea too.
The Ricotta Cheese Gnocchi Graphic
Our full resolution illustration for printing. gnocchi.jpg
Researching the recipe again, years later, I was confronted by pages and pages of results. None mention using diced garlic, perhaps because the texture of the dish is supposed to be smooth. But the differences I found were very interesting – some two eggs, some 1/2 pound of Ricotta Cheese, all with Parmesan Cheese and one, issued by Macheesmo.com with Butter. Macheesmo’s author, Nick, was the subect of a very early FN interview article so I had to include his!
Ricotta Cheese Gnocchi Recipe Sources
Food Network
Macheesmo’s recipe by Zuni
AllRecipes.com
The Kitchn
Analyzing recipes before hand to know what results to expect takes more experience that I have, but that’s what this post is all about; getting started with the ability to compare and contrast many different recipes that alledge to yield the same result.
