Italian Friulian Plum Gnocchi | Gnocchi di Susine
Gnocchi di susine are the clearest proof that Trieste and the eastern edge of Friuli Venezia Giulia belong to a different culinary world from the rest of Italy. A whole Italian prune plum is wrapped in potato dough, boiled like any other gnocco, then rolled through butter and toasted breadcrumbs scented with cinnamon. The result is sweet, savoury, buttery and faintly sour all at once, and in the houses where it is still made it arrives as a first course, not as dessert.
Everything about the dish is a question of balance. The plum brings acidity and a lot of water. The potato dough brings starch that can turn gluey in seconds. The crumbs bring fat and crunch that have to survive contact with a wet dumpling. Get the proportions right and you eat something light, fragrant and structured. Get them wrong and you eat a heavy ball of paste with a hot plum in the middle.
This is the version I teach: the dough handled while the potato is still hot, the plums chosen small and firm, the crumbs toasted slowly so they keep their bite. Nothing is modernised. The only thing added is timing, which is what turns a rustic dish into one you can serve to guests without apology.
Yield: 4 servings, 12 gnocchi, 3 per person. Prep: 45 minutes. Cook: 30 minutes. Total: about 1 hour 15 minutes. Difficulty: intermediate. Course: primo piatto. Region: Friuli Venezia Giulia, Trieste and the Carso.
The Story
Trieste spent five centuries looking north rather than south. Until 1918 it was the main seaport of the Habsburg empire, and its kitchens were shaped by Vienna, Ljubljana and Prague far more than by Venice. Fruit filled dumplings travelled that whole empire: knedle in Slovenia, knedliky in Bohemia, Knodel in Austria. When the technique reached the Adriatic it met the Italian potato gnocco, and the two fused into something that exists nowhere else in this form.
The plum is the reason the dish has a season. Susine, the small oval prune plums that ripen in late August and September in the orchards of the Carso and the Collio, are firm, only moderately sweet and distinctly acidic. They hold their shape through boiling, and their sourness keeps the sugar and butter from turning cloying. Families make the dish in the weeks the fruit is on the tree and rarely otherwise, which is why you look for it in vain on a Trieste menu in March.
The sugar cube pressed into the stoned plum is not decoration but kitchen engineering handed down for generations: a cube melts slowly, releases its sweetness only once the dumpling is cooked through, and fills the cavity left by the stone so the dough is supported from inside. Loose sugar dissolves early, thins the juice and can split the seam. In Gorizia a few households finish the dish with grated smoked ricotta, a habit borrowed from the Slovenian side of the border.
Ingredients
For the potato dough
Starchy potatoes, russet or Kennebec, unpeeled, 2 lb (900 g)
All purpose flour, 1 1/2 cups (190 g), plus more for the bench
Egg yolk, large, 1
Whole egg, large, 1
Fine sea salt, 3/4 tsp (4.5 g)
Freshly grated nutmeg, 1 small pinch
For the plum filling
Italian prune plums, small and firm, 12
Sugar cubes, 12, or granulated sugar, 4 tsp (17 g)
Ground cinnamon, 1/2 tsp (1.3 g)
Finely grated lemon zest, from 1/2 lemon
For the butter crumbs
Unsalted butter, 6 tbsp (85 g)
Dry fine breadcrumbs, 1 cup (110 g)
Granulated sugar, 2 tbsp (25 g)
Ground cinnamon, 1/2 tsp (1.3 g)
Fine sea salt, 1 small pinch
For the cooking water
Water, 5 qt (4.7 l)
Fine sea salt, 1 tbsp (18 g)
For finishing
Granulated sugar, 1 tbsp (13 g), for dusting
Smoked ricotta, grated, 2 tbsp (15 g), optional
Ground cinnamon, for dusting
Preparation
Step 1
Boil the potatoes whole and unpeeled in abundant unsalted water, starting them from cold and holding a gentle simmer for 35 to 45 minutes depending on size. Whole skins matter: a peeled potato absorbs water through the exposed flesh, and every extra gram of water in the dough has to be corrected with extra flour later. Test with a thin skewer, which should slide through the centre with no resistance. Drain and let them steam dry in the empty pan for one minute.
Step 2
Peel the potatoes while they are still too hot to hold comfortably, using a cloth and a small knife, and pass them at once through a ricer onto a cool bench. Hot potato is the whole point: the starch granules are still swollen and open, they bind egg and flour with very little help, and the mash stays fluffy. A cooled potato turns waxy and sticky and demands far more flour. Spread the riced potato loosely and let it cool three minutes so the eggs will not scramble.
Step 3
Scatter the salt, the nutmeg and about two thirds of the flour over the warm potato, pour the whole egg and the yolk into the middle, and bring everything together with a bench scraper, chopping and folding rather than kneading. Add the rest of the flour only if the mass still coats your fingers. Stop the moment the dough is smooth and just holds, which takes under a minute. Every extra turn develops gluten, and gluten is what makes plum gnocchi tough rather than tender.
Step 4
Wash and dry the plums, then cut along the natural seam only far enough to reach the stone and lever it out, keeping the fruit in one piece and joined on the opposite side. Drop a sugar cube into each cavity, add a pinch of cinnamon and a little lemon zest, and press the fruit closed so the seam sits tight. Choose plums about the size of a large walnut. A big plum needs so much dough around it that the ratio tips and the gnocco cooks unevenly.
Step 5
Flour the bench lightly and divide the dough into twelve equal pieces of about 2 oz (55 g). Flatten each into a disc roughly 3 1/2 inches (9 cm) across and no more than 1/4 inch (6 mm) thick, set a plum in the centre and draw the dough up around it, pinching to seal and then rolling the parcel between cupped palms into a smooth ball with no visible seam. Any gap opens in the water. Set them on a floured tray in one layer.
Step 6
Bring the water to the boil in a wide deep pot, add the salt, which is deliberately light for a dish carrying this much sugar, then lower the heat until the surface is barely trembling. Slide the gnocchi in with a skimmer, six at a time so they are never crowded, and keep the water below a true boil: a rolling boil batters the seams open. They rise after roughly four minutes and need four or five minutes more so the heat reaches the fruit.
Step 7
While the gnocchi cook, melt the butter in a wide pan over medium low heat until it foams, add the breadcrumbs and stir patiently for six to eight minutes until they are the colour of dark honey and smell toasted. Off the heat, stir in the sugar, the cinnamon and the pinch of salt and let the residual warmth dissolve the sugar. Lift the gnocchi out, drain them a few seconds, then roll them through the warm crumbs until fully coated.
Plating
Serve gnocchi di susine on warm plates, never hot ones. A plate straight from the warming drawer keeps softening the crumbs while the diner works through the first dumpling, and the contrast between crisp coating and yielding fruit is the whole pleasure of the dish. Three gnocchi per person is the traditional portion for a first course, arranged in a loose triangle with a little space between them so the crust is exposed to the air.
Spoon the remaining butter crumbs over and around them rather than under, dust very lightly with sugar and cinnamon from a sieve held high above the plate, and stop there. If you are using smoked ricotta, grate it over at the last second, where its salt and smoke act as a counterweight to the sugar. Serve at once: a plum gnocco is at its best within two minutes of the pan and noticeably duller after ten.
Professional Technique
The controlling technique is the management of water in three places at once. The potato carries water, the plum carries far more, and the pot supplies a third source. Boiling the potatoes in their skins and ricing them hot removes as much of the first as possible before flour enters the equation. The plum is sealed inside a closed shell so its juice stays as a sauce around the fruit instead of thinning the dough from inside. The pot is held below a simmer so the outer surface hydrates slowly.
The second technique is the sealing itself. A seam closed only by pinching will reopen, because the pinched edge is thicker than the rest of the shell and expands at a different rate in the water. Rolling the sealed parcel between cupped palms redistributes that thickness until the wall is even all the way around, which is why the traditional gesture is a roll and not a fold. An even wall also means the dough finishes cooking at the moment the fruit becomes hot, which is the real definition of a correctly cooked plum gnocco.
Texture and Moisture Control
Flour quantity is not a fixed number, and any recipe that pretends otherwise is misleading you. Two pounds of potatoes can absorb between 1 1/4 and 1 3/4 cups of flour depending on variety, age and how thoroughly they were dried. Work by feel: the dough should be soft, slightly tacky to a floured finger and able to take a clean impression. A dough that feels reassuringly firm has already gone too far and will boil up dense.
The crumbs are the second texture to protect, and they fail through fat and sugar rather than heat. Butter toasted too fast leaves the crumbs greasy outside and raw inside, so they go soft within a minute of meeting the gnocchi. Toasted slowly, the crumb dries through and then takes the butter as a coating instead of a soak. Sugar goes in off the heat, since sugar in a hot pan caramelises, fuses the crumbs and turns bitter. Drain each gnocco properly before it touches them: a film of cooking water dissolves the sugar and collapses the crust on contact.
Professional Mise en Place
The dough does not like waiting and the assembly window is short, so the sequence below matters as much as the recipe.
Equipment and tools
Potato ricer or food mill fitted with the fine disc
Bench scraper and a cool work surface, marble or steel if you have it
Wide deep pot, at least 8 qt (7.5 l), and a large skimmer
Wide low sided pan for toasting the crumbs
Floured tray and a fine sieve for the final dusting
Prepared ahead
Plums stoned, filled and closed, up to 3 hours ahead, covered and cool
Breadcrumbs toasted in butter, up to 4 hours ahead, held at room temperature
Sugar and cinnamon mixed for the final dusting
Potatoes boiled at the last moment, since the dough is made hot
Shaped gnocchi held on a floured tray for no more than 30 minutes
Service setup
Water holding just below a simmer, never at a rolling boil
Crumb pan warm at the side of the stove, sugar already stirred through
Skimmer, draining rack and plates within reach
Plates warm rather than hot, so the crust keeps its bite
Smoked ricotta and the sieve ready for the final seconds
Chef Tips
Cook one test gnocco before shaping the rest. Wrap a spoonful of dough around a piece of plum and boil it. If it swells and falls apart the dough needs a little more flour; if it comes out rubbery you have added too much already. Two minutes on that test saves the batch.
Taste the plums first. Very ripe fruit gives a watery centre and no acidity to balance the butter, so leave out one sugar cube and add a squeeze of lemon juice inside the cavity instead. Fruit that is still firm is the better problem: ten minutes in the pot softens it, and its sourness is what the dish is built around.
If Italian prune plums are unavailable, small firm apricots work on the same timings and method. Avoid round dessert plums: too juicy, too sweet, too large, and their skins slip off in the water.
Leftover toasted crumbs keep in a sealed jar for a week and are worth making in double quantity. They finish baked squash, ricotta gnocchi and roast pears, and in Trieste kitchens the jar lives permanently at the back of the shelf.
Common Mistakes
Peeling the potatoes before boiling. Exposed flesh absorbs cooking water, and that water has to be balanced later with flour, the single most common cause of heavy plum gnocchi.
Letting the potato go cold. Cold potato starch retrogrades and turns sticky, so the dough needs far more flour to become workable and loses its lightness in the process. Rice the potatoes while they are still steaming and build the dough immediately.
Boiling hard instead of simmering. A rolling boil knocks the parcels against each other, forces the seams open and leaves you with plums in one part of the pot and empty dough in another. Keep the surface barely trembling for the full cooking time.
Taking the gnocchi out as soon as they float. Floating means the outside is cooked, not the centre. They need four or five minutes more so the heat reaches the fruit and the sugar cube melts.
Adding the sugar to the crumbs over the heat. Sugar in a hot pan caramelises within seconds, welds the crumbs into hard clusters and picks up a burnt edge. Take the pan off the flame first and let the residual warmth dissolve it gently.
Wine Pairing
Collio Friulano DOC: The local answer and the most complete one. Friulano finishes on a distinct bitter almond note that lands directly on the toasted breadcrumbs and the browned butter, while its firm acidity stops the sugar building up across three dumplings. It is dry, which matters here: a sweet wine beside a sweet plum flattens both.
Alto Adige Gewürztraminer DOC: Choose a dry bottling and it becomes the most expressive pairing on the list. The rose petal and warm baking spice aromatics run straight alongside the cinnamon, and the slight oiliness of the wine mirrors the butter without adding weight. Serve it cool, around 50°F (10°C), so the perfume stays lifted rather than heavy.
Ribolla Gialla Collio DOC: The refresher of the group. Lean, lemony and low in alcohol, it scrubs the palate clean between mouthfuls instead of matching the richness, which makes it the bottle to reach for when the gnocchi open a longer meal.
Schioppettino Friuli Colli Orientali DOC: The red that works, provided it is served at around 57°F (14°C). Its sour cherry fruit meets the acidity of the plum on its own terms and its black pepper signature plays against the cinnamon rather than clashing with it. The tannin is light enough not to grip against the sugar.
Lugana DOC: A dependable choice when nothing Friulian is at hand. Grown on the clay south of Lake Garda, it carries more body than most Italian whites and a saline finish that reads almost savoury, giving it the weight to sit under the butter while staying dry and clean.
Storage & Reheating
Shaped uncooked gnocchi freeze far better than they refrigerate. Set them apart on a floured tray, freeze until solid, then bag them for up to 2 months and cook them straight from frozen in the same barely simmering water, allowing about 3 minutes more. Refrigerated instead, the raw dough weeps around the plum within hours and the seams soften, which is why an uncooked tray should never wait more than 30 minutes at room temperature.
Cooked gnocchi keep in the refrigerator in a sealed container for up to 2 days, though the crumbs will have softened. Rewarm them in a pan with a knob of fresh butter over low heat, turning them gently for 4 or 5 minutes, and add a spoonful of freshly toasted crumbs at the end to bring the texture back. Do not use a microwave, which steams the shell and turns it pasty, and never reboil them, since a second bath in water saturates the dough completely. The butter crumbs on their own keep in a sealed jar at room temperature for a week.
Nutrition
Per serving, based on 4 servings of 3 gnocchi each:
Calories: 610 kcal
Total Fat: 21 g
Saturated Fat: 12 g
Trans Fat: 0.6 g
Unsaturated Fat: 7 g
Cholesterol: 140 mg
Sodium: 520 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 93 g
Fiber: 6 g
Total Sugars: 21 g
Added Sugars: 12 g
Protein: 13 g
Lactose: 0.4 g
Principal micronutrients: potassium, vitamin C, vitamin A, vitamin B6, iron, magnesium
These figures are estimates. Most of the salt in the cooking water is discarded, and both sugar and fat depend on how generously the crumbs are spooned over at the end.
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