Bit by bit, putting it together

I probably need to turn in my gay card. I know that's from a Stephen Sondheim song. More than that, I don't. That's bad. That's really, REALLY bad. I mean, one of the questions on the entrance exam (there IS one you know. Every one of us passed it) is to repeat the lyrics from three published, and one unpublished Sondheim song with no errors. There's no partial credit on that question. I think I missed that one, but probably got extra credit on the quiche recipe one to make up for it.

Ok, enough foolishnes. What does that title refer to? Well, it has to do with how I sometimes put together a recipe. When we had our cooking class last week, Michael asked me why we go out to eat, if I enjoy cooking that much. The answer is pretty easy. First, I don't like to cook every night. I get tired. Second, I go to restaurants for inspiration. What are my favorite cooks making? Can I copy it? Can I get an idea? For example, at Savoy on Friday, I had sorrel ice cream. It was terrific. I don't know if I'll ever make it, but it's in my mind.

Ciruitously, I came to a recipe I made this morning. Zuni cafe, in San Francisco, makes a specialty of their sheeps milk ricotta gnocchi. I have that recipe. I have tried it several times. And I have failed every single time. It's a very delicate recipe, with no flour, as far as I can tell, and limited eggs. I suspect that when it's on the menu there is a dedicated line chef who does nothing but, scooping the delicate stuff into simmering water to order. That is something I simply cannot do.

But gnocchi fascinate me, and not potato gnocchi, although I do love them. Italians make gnocchi out of anything starchy. One of my favorites is made with butternut squash and amaretto cookie crumbs, and that's from Maryanne Esposito. There is another one, made with semolina flour and lots of milk, that is called "Roman gnocchi." Both are absolutely wonderful. So, gnocchi are in there, in my mind, a lot.

At the aforementioned Savoy this past week, I ate a bowl of soup that was an onion broth, with ramp "dumplings." These were really gnocchi. And I began thinking. Hmmmm. Time to try again.
Was it Edison or Einstein who wrote "chance favors the prepared mind?" My mind was "prepared " for gnocchi, and then a few things came together. One of the sheep cheese vendors had ricotta for the first time this weekend. They can only make ricotta when the lambs are weaning, and their dams have too much milk. So there was a pound of that in the fridge. Of course, after a spring veggie run at the big farmers' market, I came home with nettles, and too many other greens. And no plans.

Then, last night at another favorite restaurant, Cookshop, it seemed like it was a salute to what they could find. There were ramp dishes all over the menu. And I came close to having one. But I was extremely intrigued by a pasta dish of nettle pesto with mascarpone and ricotta. As with everthing there, it was wonderful. And I was thinking of making that pesto this morning. BUT.... it fought with the idea of the gnocchi, and the gnocchi won out.

I am going to warn you ahead of time: this is a tricky recipe. I am not at all sure I have it right. But it's good, and it's worth playing with things.

I started with two bunches of nettles. I cut them right at the point where their tough stems became tender (you can see this very easily). Then I dumped that into salted, boiling water, and cooked for about five minutes. I drained that, and then ran cold water over it, because when you're making gnocchi, you need things cold, and you need them DRY. So, by having the greens cold, I could take them in small handfuls and squeeze the water out of them. Then I chopped them fine and let them sit on paper for a few minutes, while I got other things together.

The "other things" were the pound of ricotta, an egg, and eventually, a third of a cup of flour. If I were not doing this "on the fly," I would have let the ricotta sit, overnight, in a strainer, to let all of the l iquid dissipate. I didn't do that here, and that may be why I needed the flour. So what I did was I dumped the cheese, the egg, and the greens onto my workboard, and mixed them together. This is a sticky mass. Thinking the egg would be enough to bind things, I pinched off a little bit of the stuff and put it into a pot of simmering water, to see what would happen.

After two minutes, the gnocchi exploded into bits and pieces. Not enough structure OK, so I needed flour. I added a third of a cup, and did the same thing with a bit. This time, I also turned down the heat, so that the water was hot, but not boiling. I could see that at three minutes, the thing did begin to disintegrate, so there was my cue: cook them for TWO minutes. (Incidentally, this stepwise testing of gnocchi is critical when you do them. NOTHING is more subject to the whims of weather, the air in your kitchen, and everything else, than gnocchi).

Now that I had my mix, I formed little balls of the stuff. I had about 32 of them, and I cooked them, eight at a time, for two minutes in that hot, not simmering water. This was the right decision, because I could tell when I went beyond two minutes that they did begin to fall apart. I pulled them out, with a slotted spoon, and drained them until they were cold.

Gnocchi should be frozen when you do something like this, and cooked, frozen, unthawed for about five or six minutes, in that barely simmering water (or stock, or whatever you like).

If you aren't sure about nettles, use spinach. And then add some nutmeg. Or use another green. You could use chard, or you could use kale, you could use whatever you like. Just make sure it's cool, and drained and dry. If you have the time for draining your ricotta, do that, too. DON"T use the stuff that ends with a Polly-O. It's ghastly. Buy some good stuff for this.

Honestly, I could eat that whole portion of the little guys, but eight is probably a really fair portion with a nice sauce of some kind, as a FIRST course. I don't like serving them as a main course, because too many start to make you feel very leaden and full, but don't let me stop you from pigging out on them.

As the fall comes back, we may have time to revisit butternut squash gnocchi, and maybe later this season, we'll visit the semolina kind. I have some ideas for a sauce other than the traditional butter and cheese. Stay tuned. In the meanwhile, eat your greens, but more than that, have fun with them.