Italian Ricotta Gnocchi with Fresh Tomato and Basil | Gnocchi di Ricotta al Pomodoro Fresco e Basilico
This is the plainest dish in the ricotta gnocchi family and by some distance the hardest to get right. There are four flavours on the plate, tomato, basil, olive oil and fresh curd, and not one of them has anywhere to hide. A long cooked sauce covers a mediocre dumpling. A raw tomato sauce that takes eighteen minutes does not.
The dumpling itself is made the way a Roman nonna would recognise, which is to say by hand and by feel rather than by formula. Ricotta arrives at a different wetness every week, so the flour is judged against how the curd behaves under the heel of the hand.
The sauce is built from two parts of the same tomato, the flesh and the jelly around the seeds, and finished with basil added twice: the stems while it cooks, the leaves after the pan comes off the heat. That split is the whole technique.
Yield: 4 servings. Drain: 8 hours. Prep: 40 minutes. Cook: 30 minutes. Total: about 9 hours, of which roughly 1 hour 10 minutes is work. Difficulty: intermediate. Course: primo piatto. Region: Campania for the tomato, Liguria for the basil, Lazio for the gnocchi.
The Story
The San Marzano tomato grows on the Agro Sarnese Nocerino, the flat volcanic plain that runs between Vesuvius and the Monti Picentini and takes in Sarno, Nocera and San Marzano sul Sarno itself. The soil there is old pyroclastic ash laid down by the mountain, dark, deep and unusually rich in potassium, and it is the reason the fruit tastes the way it does: low in seeds, thick in flesh, high in sugar and low in the sharp acidity of most plum tomatoes.
The variety appears in the record around 1770, when seed from the Viceroyalty of Peru is said to have reached the Kingdom of Naples as a gift, and by the late nineteenth century it had become the backbone of the Italian canning industry that grew up around Salerno and Nocera. It received DOP status in 1996.
The basil comes from the other end of the country. Basilico Genovese DOP is grown on the terraced slopes above Genoa, above all at Pra, where the plants are picked young and small leaved and where the sea air keeps the mint note that spoils basil grown inland from ever developing. Liguria supplies the leaf, Campania supplies the fruit, and Lazio supplies the ricotta dumpling underneath. The dish is a map of three regions on one plate, which is what most Italian cooking actually looks like once you follow the ingredients home.
Ingredients
For the ricotta gnocchi
Whole milk cow ricotta, 1 lb 2 oz (500 g) before hanging, about 13 oz (370 g) after
Egg, large, 1
Parmigiano Reggiano aged 24 months, finely grated, 1 1/2 oz (40 g)
Italian 00 flour, 2/3 cup (85 g), plus more for the board
Fine sea salt, 1/2 tsp (3 g)
Freshly grated nutmeg, a small pinch
Coarse sea salt for the cooking water, 2 tbsp (35 g)
For the fresh tomato sauce
Ripe San Marzano or plum tomatoes, 2 1/4 lb (1 kg)
Extra virgin olive oil, 1/4 cup (60 ml)
Garlic cloves, peeled and lightly crushed, 2
Basil sprigs with their stems, 2
Fine sea salt, 1 tsp (6 g)
Granulated sugar, 1/4 tsp (1 g), only if the tomatoes need it
For finishing
Genoese basil leaves, small, 16
Extra virgin olive oil, 2 tbsp (30 ml)
Parmigiano Reggiano, finely grated, 1 oz (30 g)
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Preparation
Skin the tomatoes and save the jelly
Score a shallow cross in the base of each tomato, drop them into boiling water for 20 seconds and lift them straight into iced water. The skins slip off in one piece. Halve them, scoop the seeds and their surrounding jelly into a sieve set over a bowl, and press gently so the clear liquid runs through. Keep that liquid. Chop the flesh into rough 1/2 inch (1 cm) pieces and discard the pale core.
Hang the ricotta in cloth
Tip the ricotta into a double layer of cheesecloth, gather the corners and tie it to a wooden spoon laid across a deep bowl so the bundle swings clear of the base. Refrigerate it for 8 hours. Hanging draws whey out more evenly than pressing does, and the curd keeps its grain instead of being crushed into paste. What you want at the end is a curd that holds a fingerprint without weeping into it.
Bring the dough together by feel
Turn the hung curd into a wide bowl and break it up with a fork. Beat the egg with the salt and the nutmeg, pour it in, then add the Parmigiano and finally two thirds of the flour. Work it with the heel of one hand in short pushes, not a kneading motion. The mixture goes from wet to workable in under a minute, and the moment it stops printing on your palm it is finished. Add the last of the flour only if it is still smearing.
Roll, cut and rest the gnocchi
Flour a board lightly and divide the dough into six. Roll each piece under flat fingers into a rope about 2/3 inch (1.7 cm) thick, working from the middle outwards so the rope thins evenly, and cut it into short pillows with a bench scraper dipped in flour. Lay them apart on a floured tray and rest them uncovered in the refrigerator for 20 minutes, which firms the surface just enough to survive the water.
Cook the tomatoes for eighteen minutes
Warm the olive oil in a wide sauté pan over medium heat with the crushed garlic and let it perfume the oil for 2 minutes without colouring. Lift the garlic out, add the chopped flesh, the reserved seed jelly, the salt and the basil stems, and cook uncovered at a lively simmer for about 18 minutes. Crush the pieces against the side of the pan with a wooden spoon as they soften. Taste, and add the pinch of sugar only if the tomatoes are sharp. Pull out the stems.
Salt the water and poach the gnocchi
Bring 4 quarts (3.8 liters) of water to the boil with the coarse salt, which is deliberately less salt than pasta water because the sauce and the Parmigiano both bring their own. Lower the heat until the surface only shivers, around 190°F (88°C), and slide the gnocchi in in two batches. They sink, then rise. Count 45 seconds from the moment each one surfaces, then lift it out with a spider and let it drain briefly against the side of the pan.
Finish the gnocchi in the pan with the basil
Have the tomato sauce warm and loose in a wide pan off direct heat. Add the drained gnocchi, spoon the sauce over rather than stirring from below, and rock the pan gently two or three times so everything coats without breaking. Loosen with a spoonful of poaching water if the sauce tightens. Tear twelve basil leaves over the pan now, off the heat, and add the finishing olive oil. Thirty seconds of resting in the warm pan is enough for the gnocchi to take up the sauce.
Plating
Use wide shallow bowls warmed to about 130°F (55°C). This dish is served hotter than a cheese sauce would allow, because tomato aroma opens with heat and flattens as it cools, and there is no emulsion here to worry about breaking.
Spoon the gnocchi into the centre with a large spoon rather than tipping the pan, so the sauce pools around them instead of drowning them, and keep the mound low and open. Finish each bowl with a single small basil leaf laid flat, a thread of olive oil and one turn of black pepper. Hand the grated Parmigiano round at the table rather than snowing it over the plate in the kitchen.
Professional Technique
The sauce is built from two fractions of the same fruit and they behave differently. The flesh is mostly pectin and sugar and needs heat to break down. The jelly around the seeds is where most of the glutamate and the free acidity sit, and it is almost pure flavoured water. Cooking them together for 18 minutes gives the flesh long enough to collapse while the jelly reduces just far enough to concentrate, which is why this tastes deeper than a raw sauce and fresher than a long simmered one.
Basil is added in two forms because its aroma compounds behave in two ways. Linalool and eugenol, the sweet clove notes in the stems, are reasonably heat stable and release slowly into a simmering sauce, which is why the stems go in at the start. The volatile top notes in the leaf are gone within seconds of contact with a hot pan and turn the leaf black as well, so the leaves are torn in off the heat. Tearing rather than cutting matters too: a knife bruises a wide band of cells along the edge and that bruising is what makes basil taste of hay.
The dumpling is bound by egg rather than by gluten. A whole egg sets from about 145°F (63°C) and is fully coagulated by 180°F (82°C), which is precisely why the poaching water is held at 190°F (88°C) rather than boiled. In that window the egg firms the curd from within while the flour does little more than hold the shape until the protein takes over.
Texture and Moisture Control
The sauce has to be loose enough to move around the bowl and thick enough to cling to a soft dumpling, which in practice means it should fall from a spoon in a heavy ribbon rather than a stream. Fresh tomatoes are roughly 94 percent water, so the entire 18 minutes is an exercise in removing water without cooking away the fresh aroma. Keep the pan wide and uncovered.
Ricotta gnocchi go on absorbing after they leave the water. Thirty seconds in the warm pan is enough for them to draw sauce into the surface, a minute and a half turns them slack and the sauce thin. This is why the pan comes off the heat before the gnocchi go in and why the dish is plated immediately rather than held.
Olive oil is the last texture control. Added off the heat and rocked rather than stirred, it suspends in the tomato water and the little starch the gnocchi carry with them, and the sauce turns glossy and slightly thicker without any reduction at all. Poured on in a hot pan instead, it separates and sits on the surface in a bright orange film.
Professional Mise en Place
Everything except the poaching and the finishing can be done in advance, and should be. The last stage takes under three minutes from the water to the table.
Equipment and tools
Cheesecloth and a wooden spoon for hanging the ricotta
Wide sauté pan, at least 11 inches (28 cm), for the sauce
Tall pot for the poaching water and a spider skimmer
Bench scraper and a floured tray for the shaped gnocchi
Sieve and bowl for the seed jelly
Prepared ahead
Ricotta hung 8 hours or overnight, kept cold
Tomatoes skinned, seeded and chopped, up to 1 day ahead
Seed jelly strained and refrigerated in a sealed jar
Sauce cooked up to 2 days ahead and rewarmed at service
Gnocchi shaped and rested on a floured tray up to 3 hours ahead
Service setup
Poaching water salted and holding at about 190°F (88°C)
Sauce warm in the wide pan, off direct heat, slightly looser than final
Basil leaves picked, dry and whole, torn only at the moment of finishing
Finishing olive oil and grated Parmigiano within reach
Bowls warmed to about 130°F (55°C)
Chef Tips
If the tomatoes are out of season, use whole peeled San Marzano DOP from a tin rather than pale fresh ones, and crush them by hand. A good tinned tomato picked ripe beats a fresh tomato picked green every time, and the only change to the method is cutting the cooking down to about 12 minutes.
Never refrigerate a ripe tomato before you cook it. Below about 54°F (12°C) the enzymes that generate its aroma compounds shut down and do not restart on warming, which is why a cold tomato tastes of nothing. Keep them on the counter.
Taste the ricotta on its own before it goes anywhere near the flour. A slightly sour curd will taste sour in the finished dumpling and the sauce will not cover it, because there is nothing else on this plate to argue with. It should be sweet, milky and clean.
Do not wash the basil at the last minute. Wet leaves bruise as you tear them and drop water into the finished pan. Rinse them an hour ahead, dry them completely in a towel and keep them in a loose bag at room temperature, never in the refrigerator.
Common Mistakes
Throwing away the seeds and the jelly. That jelly holds most of the glutamate in the fruit and it is the single biggest source of savoury depth in a short cooked sauce. Strain it and keep it, and discard only the seeds themselves.
Cooking the sauce for an hour. Beyond about 25 minutes the fresh aroma compounds have gone and what remains is a passata, at which point the fresh tomato was wasted. Eighteen minutes in a wide pan is enough to soften the flesh and hold the fruit.
Adding the basil leaves to the hot pan. They blacken almost at once and the volatile aromatics are lost within seconds. Stems go in at the beginning for the stable notes, leaves are torn in at the end off the heat.
Boiling the gnocchi. Egg bound ricotta dumplings set at temperatures well below boiling, and a rolling boil simply breaks them up before the protein has firmed. Hold the water at about 190°F (88°C).
Stirring the gnocchi into the sauce. A spoon dragged through the pan tears soft dumplings apart and turns the sauce cloudy with broken curd. Spoon the sauce over from above and rock the pan instead.
Wine Pairing
Lacryma Christi del Vesuvio DOC Bianco: Grown on the same volcanic ash that feeds the San Marzano, a few kilometres from where the tomato belongs. Coda di Volpe and Verdeca give a soft yellow fruited white with a smoky mineral edge and just enough acidity to meet the tomato without competing with it.
Falanghina del Sannio DOC: The workhorse white of the Campanian hills and a natural partner for anything built on tomato and olive oil. Its brisk green apple and citrus acidity matches the fruit acid in the sauce, and the faint almond bitterness on the finish keeps the ricotta from tasting flat.
Riviera Ligure di Ponente Pigato DOC: The Ligurian answer, from the same coast as the basil. Pigato has a herbal, almost sage like aroma and a saline finish that picks up the basil directly rather than working against it, and its weight sits comfortably with olive oil used as a finishing ingredient.
Cerasuolo d'Abruzzo DOC: A deeply coloured dry rosato from Montepulciano grapes, with sour cherry fruit and real structure. Rosato is the safest choice with fresh tomato because it has the red fruit to echo the sauce and the acidity of a white to cut it. Serve it properly cold, around 50°F (10°C).
Etna Rosso DOC: For a red, Nerello Mascalese from the volcano is the one that works. Pale, high in acidity and fine in tannin, it behaves more like a northern red than a Sicilian one, and its ash and dried herb character suits a sauce that is bright rather than heavy.
Storage & Reheating
The tomato sauce keeps refrigerated in a sealed container for 3 days and freezes well for up to 3 months, though freeze it before the basil leaves go in. Rewarm it in a wide pan over medium heat with a splash of water, and tear fresh leaves in only once it is off the stove. Basil frozen in a sauce turns grey and tastes of hay on thawing.
Raw gnocchi hold on a floured tray in the refrigerator for up to 3 hours. For longer, freeze them apart on the tray until solid, about 90 minutes, then bag them for up to 1 month and poach them from frozen, counting 60 seconds from the moment they surface instead of 45.
Dressed gnocchi keep 1 day in the refrigerator, covered, and are best revived in a wide pan over low heat with 2 tbsp (30 ml) of water, rocking the pan until they loosen and warm through. Do not microwave them and never freeze them once sauced.
Nutrition
Per serving, based on 4 servings:
Calories: 520 kcal
Total Fat: 27 g
Saturated Fat: 9 g
Trans Fat: 0 g
Unsaturated Fat: 17 g
Cholesterol: 115 mg
Sodium: 780 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 43 g
Fiber: 4 g
Total Sugars: 10 g
Added Sugars: 0.5 g
Protein: 24 g
Lactose: 3 g
Principal micronutrients: lycopene, vitamin C, vitamin A, potassium, calcium, phosphorus, folate
These figures are estimates. The lycopene figure rises with cooking rather than falling, and sodium depends mostly on the Parmigiano and on how much of the poaching water travels into the pan.
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