Ricotta Cheese Gnocchi in a Caper Butter Sauce

These ricotta cheese gnocchi are the altogether lighter, quicker and much more simple than their potato gnocchi brethren. I like to serve them with a simple lemon, caper and butter sauce.

Ricotta Cheese Gnocchi.

What, what, what, a homemade gnocchi recipe in 25 minutes and they are not store bought?

Tell me more you say! Ok, the answer is ricotta cheese gnocchi.

Traditional potato gnocchi are often troublesome and notoriously inconsistent wee beasties.

They are so dependent on the moisture content of your potatoes. Possible to make at home but certainly not easy and require a little experience and practice.

Well, these remove much of the vagueness of traditional gnocchi and are altogether much lighter than their potato-based brethren.

I do love homemade gnocchi. Sure they do not look as perfectly formed and as the factory churned out jobbies. But they for me are the essence of good home cooking.

There is nothing wrong with shop bought gnocchi of course, in fact, one of my most popular recipes here on Krumpli. This cheesy baked gnocchi recipe makes great use of them.

How To Make Homemade Gnocchi with Ricotta Cheese.

Perfect in every way apart from form, these ricotta cheese gnocchi have a wonderful flavour and a sublime texture.

Making them is super simple, it is a case of chucking everything in a bowl and then bringing it together to form a dough.

Use your hands, it will not take long. The dough should be soft and light.

Then it is a simple case of rolling into sausage shapes and cutting.

Zero skill required! 

Then so long as you can boil water cooking them is just as simple.

Rapidly boiling water, salt and throw them in. When they float they are cooked!

What Sauce to Serve With Gnocchi.

I’ve gone for a less is more approach with respect to the sauce for these gnocchi.

It is a lemon, caper and butter sauce, a derivation on one that I use in my veal scallopini recipe. It is also the one that was the base of the sauce served with my seared Tuna Steak recipe.

They are flavours I love, they are light and bright but still feel hearty.

It is a sauce that starts with anchovies, I have mentioned them before as a base for sauces.

They are awesome and add a depth of flavour that you cannot replicate, it is a 1% ingredient.

One that adds that magic sprinkle of something to a dish that you cannot put your finger on but takes a dish from a solid 9 out of 10 to a clear 11!

For those of you that think you do not like anchovies, don’t worry these ricotta cheese gnocchi to not taste fishy.

Quite the opposite the sauce is bright and zingy with the lemon juice and capers setting off the fireworks alongside the soft and light gnocchi.

The anchovies just provide a subtle meaty background to all these great flavours.

Continue to Content

Ricotta Cheese Gnocchi in a Caper Butter Sauce

Yield: 2 Servings

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 25 minutes

These ricotta cheese gnocchi are the altogether lighter, quicker and much more simple than their potato gnocchi brethren and are served with a caper butter sauce.

Print

Ingredients

For the Gnocchi:

• 250 g Ricotta Cheese
• 2 Eggs
• 55 g Parmesan Cheese
• 2 Cloves Mashed Garlic
• 175 g Plain Flour

For the Caper Butter Sauce:

• 35 g Shallot
• 2 Anchovy fillets
• 50 g Butter
• 50 g Capers
• 1 Tbsp Lemon Juice
• 10 g Fresh Parsley

Instructions

1. Finely dice the shallot, slice the anchovies and finely chop the parsley.
2. Grate the Parmesan cheese
3. Mix together all of the ingredients for the Gnocchi to form a light dough making sure to just bring together and do not work too hard.
4. Separate out the dough in to 3 or 4 balls and roll each one into 20-25mm diameter sausages on a floured surface.
5. Cut these sausages into 25mm lengths, this should give you pillow shaped gnocchi.
6. Melt the butter in a large frying pan over a medium heat and when melted add in the anchovies and shallot and saute for 5 minutes.
7. Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and drop in the gnocchi and cook until they float which should take 2-3 minutes. (Put these in 3 minutes after you have started the shallots).
8. Now add in the lemon juice and capers to the butter.
9. Now you should be able to drain your gnocchi and add to the pan with the butter sauce along with the parsley.

Nutrition Information:

Yield: 2 Serving Size: 1
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 895Total Fat: 44gSaturated Fat: 25gTrans Fat: 1gUnsaturated Fat: 15gCholesterol: 306mgSodium: 1600mgCarbohydrates: 84gFiber: 5gSugar: 3gProtein: 40g

Calorific details are provided by a third-party application and are to be used as indicative figures only.