Daring Cooks Ricotta Gnocchi Challenge

The Daring Bakers has expanded and now includes Daring Cooks! This is the very first challenge - Ricotta Gnocchi.

The recipe was chosen from the cookbook by Judy Rodgers, named after her restaurant, The Zuni Café Cookbook.

You may have noticed that I rarely post meals featuring pasta. I have never been a big fan of pasta, or cheese for that matter. That fact made this challenge extra challenging, as I have never made pasta of any kind. Shoot, I have never even eaten gnocchi and I’m old! I think I can say I have now eaten gnocchi – at least what I made looked like gnocchi – but this was one of the weirdest cooking experiences I have ever had. Fun, but weird.

First I needed vegan ricotta. I’ve had the crumbled tofu ricotta before, but I decided this time I wanted to be able to eat my creation. I found an outstanding nut based, cooked ricotta from Chef Jason of Vegan Culinary Experience, February 2009 edition. This was the lightest, fluffiest, freshest tasting ricotta ever. I will make this again for pizzas and lasagnas, and I’ll give you the recipe at the end of this post so you can love it too! This was the weirdest part of the challenge, but the most rewarding. I cooked cheese! And it was so easy. I apologize that this is the only picture I have of the ricotta. It was taken when it was just done boiling and it is actually much whiter than this. (It was also on my taco salad on the previous post.)

The gnocchi recipe we were given called for beating eggs, cheese, butter, and herbs of your choice into the ricotta. Next you form the gnocchi, then coat it with flour. I think I used chickpea flour. Then the gnocchi is boiled, and then ultimately fried. I didn’t use any egg replacer or fake parm or margarine, because my ricotta was already so fluffy, but I did mix in parsley and oregano. And I would have been happy skipping the boiling step completely and going straight to the frying pan. But I did boil. Here’s the *tester*. I was unclear about the timing of this instruction, whether boiling for 3 minutes began as soon the gnocchi was dropped, or after it floated back up to the top.

I left the tester gnocchi in too long and it fell apart.

I only made six gnocchi, including the tester. (The rest of the ricotta did not go to waste!) The remaining gnocchi boiled up just fine and I was able to fry them up nicely.

I made myself a hearty veggie sauce and had a delightful dinner. I’m not such a gnocchi virgin to not know that sauce goes on top of the pasta. I merely wanted to taste the gnocchi naked. And besides, the cheese goes on top, right?

Now for that recipe!

Vegan Ricotta

Ingredients:
½ cup raw almonds
2 cups water
3 T. lemon juice
3 T. arrowroot or cornstarch
½ t. sea salt
1 t. agave
1 T. olive oil
(I think I added in garlic powder too)

Directions:
Bring the water to a boil and blanch the almonds for 1 minute. Place the almonds and the hot water in a food processor and process until very smooth. This will take a minute or two. Add the rest of the ingredients and process again. Place this mixture into a small saucepan over low heat and stir until thickened. Remove to a bowl and refrigerate until set.

I think this made about 2 cups and should be enough for a pan of lasagna. Enjoy!