By FAYE LEVY, YAKIR LEVYUpdated: JULY 17, 2015 12:43Making potato gnocchi, from "Pasta by Hand" by Jenn Louis(photo credit: ED ANDERSON)
With so much emphasis these days on culinary creativity, it’s easy to forget how delicious time-honored dishes can be. Such traditional fare was served at the recent 30th-anniversary celebration of Italian restaurant Modo Mio in Los Angeles.Tasting the antipasti of grilled vegetables and caprese salad (fresh mozzarella with tomatoes, basil and olive oil) took us back to Italy. We loved the round ravioli filled with spinach and ricotta cheese and moistened with a garlic-flavored tomato and cream sauce. The rigatoni with sautéed eggplant cubes was also delectable, with its tomato sauce flavored with garlic and olive oil and its generous garnish of shaved ricotta salata cheese and shredded fresh basil.But for us, the star of the dinner was the potato gnocchi coated with a creamy tomato pesto sauce. We would like to make this kind of dish at home more often.Potato gnocchi are made by mixing cooked, riced potatoes with flour and salt to a dough, and kneading it lightly. The dough is then rolled into a log and cut in small pieces. Finally each piece is shaped using a gnocchi board or a fork. (See recipe.)Although some consider potato gnocchi to be a kind of pasta, many, including Louis, categorize it as a dumpling. Louis describes Italian dumplings as “carefully handcrafted nubs of dough that are poached, simmered, baked or sautéed.”Sometimes flavorings such as Parmesan cheese or red wine are added to potato gnocchi dough. In Abruzzo, a region east of Rome, potato gnocchi are flavored with saffron and served with a sauce of garlic, ricotta and butter.Italian dumplings can be made from a variety of ingredients, including cheese, greens and grains, and have a wide range of textures, from dense and chewy to soft and light. Making soft dumplings entails dropping them with a spoon into simmering water; their shaping method is similar to the technique for forming matza balls. Pasta grattugiata, or grated pasta, is made from a dough containing bread crumbs, flour, eggs and Parmesan; the dough is grated into small crumbles and cooked in broth.The basic component of dumplings, writes Louis, varies from one region of Italy to another. Those made with bread crumbs tend to be from the north, those with ricotta and potatoes from the center, and those with semolina flour from the south. Other kinds of flour used include chestnut flour, buckwheat flour and farro. In Lazio, the region that includes Rome, long thin cecamariti are traditionally made from leftover bread dough. The dough for making this pasta also has white wine, which adds depth of flavor, as does the yeast.Cooks in Italy make dumplings from all sorts of vegetables, including cooked chickpeas, grated zucchini, chopped cooked spinach, chard, kale, mustard greens and even wild nettles. In Piedmont, beets give a rich red color to gnocchi made with ricotta or with potatoes; Louis likes to serve them with brown butter and sage. To make winter squash cavatelli, or ridged dumplings, she uses baked butternut squash.Pesto and tomato sauce are classic accompaniments for potato gnocchi, but they are also enjoyable with gorgonzola cream sauce; brown butter with sage; ragu of lamb or beef; and ragu of liver and porcini mushrooms.Louis cautions against over-saucing pasta. “In Italy, pasta is about the noodle or dumpling, not about the sauce. The sauce is intended to complement the flavor and texture of the pasta... but it is not the primary focus of the dish.”The sauce should coat and cover the pasta or dumplings, but they “should not be swimming in sauce.”Faye Levy is the author of Sensational Pasta.POTATO GNOCCHI“In Rome and Trento, Thursday is gnocchi day,” writes Jenn Louis, “during which many restaurants serve potato dumplings with a sauce or two for lunch and dinner.To make gnocchi alla sorrentina from the coastal village of Sorrento in southern Italy, heat freshly cooked potato gnocchi very briefly in tomato sauce with cubes of fresh mozzarella, and serve them sprinkled with salt and with torn fresh basil leaves.Alternatively you can serve the gnocchi with the creamy tomato sauce or creamy tomato pesto sauce below, or with ragu, pesto or gorgonzola sauce.Makes 4 servings■ 400 gr. (14 oz.) baking potatoes■ 75 gr. (½ cup plus 1 Tbsp.) all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting■ 2 tsp. kosher salt (coarse salt)■ Semolina flour for dusting■ Sauce of your choiceIn a medium pot, cover potatoes with cold water. Bring water to a simmer over medium- high heat and cook until potatoes can be easily pierced with a skewer, 15 to 20 minutes.Drain potatoes in a colander and set aside to cool.When they’re cool enough to handle, peel potatoes and rice them into a bowl. Add the all-purpose flour and salt and stir with a wooden spoon until dough comes together.Transfer to a work surface and knead with your hands several times, until dough is smooth and soft. Cover dough with plastic wrap and let rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and dust with semolina flour. Cut off a chunk of dough about the width of two fingers and leave the rest covered with plastic wrap. On a work surface lightly dusted with all-purpose flour, use your hands to roll the chunk into a log about 12 mm. (½ inch) in diameter. Do not incorporate too much more flour into the dough, adding just enough so the dough does not stick to the surface. Cut the log into 12-mm. to 2.5- cm. (½- to 1-in.) pieces. With the side of your thumb, gently push each piece against a gnocchi board or the back of the tines of a fork, rolling and flicking the dough to make a curled shape with an indentation on one side and a ridged surface on the other.Put the gnocchi on the prepared baking sheet and shape remaining dough. Make sure that gnocchi don’t touch, or they will stick together.(To store, refrigerate on the baking sheet, covered with plastic wrap, for up to 2 days, or freeze on baking sheet and transfer to an airtight container; use within 1 month and do not thaw before cooking.)Bring a large pot filled with generously salted water to a simmer over medium-high heat. Add gnocchi and simmer until they float to the surface, 1 to 3 minutes. Remove immediately with a slotted spoon and finish with your choice of sauce. Serve right away.CREAMY TOMATO SAUCEThis recipe is from Sensational Pasta.The sauce is flavored with onions and garlic sautéed in olive oil, as well as fresh herbs.Makes enough for 255 gr. to 285 gr. (9 oz. to 10 oz.) fresh or 225 gr. (8 oz.) dried pasta, or about 4 servings■ 3 Tbsp. olive oil■ ½ cup minced onion■ 2 to 4 medium garlic cloves, minced■ 900 gr. (2 lbs.) ripe tomatoes, preferably plum tomatoes, peeled, seeded, finely chopped■ 1½ tsp. fresh thyme leaves or ½ tsp. dried leaf, crumbled■ 1 bay leaf■ ½ to 1 cup whipping cream■ 1 to 2 tsp. tomato paste■ Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste■ 2 to 3 Tbsp. slivered fresh basil or chopped parsley (to finish)Heat oil in a large heavy skillet over medium- low heat. Add onion and cook, stirring, until very soft but not browned, about 10 minutes. Add garlic and cook ½ minute.Add tomatoes, thyme, bay leaf, salt and pepper and bring to boil. Cook, uncovered, over medium-high heat, stirring often, 10 to 15 minutes or until tomatoes are very soft and sauce is fairly thick; reduce heat if necessary as sauce begins to thicken – it burns easily.Discard bay leaf.Bring tomato sauce to a boil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Whisk in cream and bring to a boil, stirring with whisk. Simmer over medium heat about 5 minutes or until slightly thickened. For a smooth sauce, strain sauce through a fine strainer set over a small saucepan, pressing on sauce with back of a spoon to extract all of liquid and scraping puree from underside of strainer with a rubber spatula.Reheat sauce. Whisk in tomato paste. Taste and adjust seasoning.Add basil or parsley after tossing pasta with enough of the sauce to moisten it.Creamy Tomato Pesto Sauce: After removing the sauce from the heat, flavor it with 2 to 3 Tbsp. pesto, or to taste.
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