January 8, 2024

Anybody aware of me understands that gnocchi is certainly one of my favorite dishes, however, I’m very specific about my gnocchi. It must be mild and ethereal, not dense and gummy and though I normally choose to make ricotta gnocchi, there are occasions when I want potato gnocchi as a substitute. Now that the hustle and bustle of the vacations are behind us, I’ve begun to overlook our house in Umbria.

I like the whole lot about Umbria, with its meals being on the prime of the record. To carry Umbria into my Florida kitchen final week, I decided to make a Norcina sauce. Norcia is a city in Umbria that sits on the base of the Sibillini Mountains and is legendary for its pork merchandise. One of many dishes Norcia is related to is a sauce made with sausage and mushrooms; that’s deliciously sure along with heavy cream.

Although this sauce may be very wealthy and decadent, it’s the epitome of consolation meals and works properly paired with many forms of pasta, together with gnocchi. As a result the sauce is reasonably heavy, I feel it works better with potato gnocchi than the extra delicate ricotta gnocchi. This dish is a hearty one, so I feel it’s best served as a major course reasonably than the first course or primi.

I’ve been testing out many variations of potato gnocchi currently and have discovered that I choose baking reasonably to boiling my potatoes because it helps to keep the potatoes dry requiring much less flour. The less you knead the gnocchi, and the less flour you employ will assist in creating lightweight textured gnocchi.

Utilizing the potatoes while they nonetheless heat additionally helps to scale back the quantity of flour wanted to serve to maintain your gnocchi mild. Russet or Yukon Gold potatoes are each good forms of potato as they’re fairly starchy although I choose Russet potatoes.

To make mushrooms the star of this dish, I floor up some dried porcini mushrooms and added two tablespoons of the dried mushroom powder to my potato gnocchi dough. I do encourage you to incorporate this step into this recipe, however, this potato gnocchi will likely be fantastic without the porcini powder if you do not need to take the additional time.

I all the time have jars of truffle paste in my pantry, some I introduced again from Italy with me, whereas others I purchase at specialty meals shops, and even House Items. To make this dish much more decadent, I added a jar (50gm) of truffle paste to my sauce. In case you are fortunate sufficient to search out some I’d say go for it, however, the dish continues to be scrumptious without the truffle paste.

There are set “guidelines” on which pasta dishes cheese is acceptable, and it’s stated that any pasta dish with mushrooms, truffles, or seafood shouldn’t embody cheese. Guidelines are supposed to be damaged typically although, and when you like cheese in your pasta, I’d recommend utilizing freshly grated Parmesan or Pecorino cheese on this dish.

Buon Appetito!
Deborah Mele