Who doesn’t love soft fluffy gnudi (ricotta gnocchi), especially when it’s served with a delicately flavoured saffron cream sauce. This recipe makes for a quick but fancy dinner and will leave you smacking your lips. Since it is cream-based, it is quite rich, but the beautiful earthy flavour of saffron balances out the recipe. Though this recipe does not call for any additional seasoning except Parmesan, salt, pepper and saffron, you may add minced garlic to this recipe to give it an additional kick. Try this recipe out if you are looking to impress without too much effort, though you will have to splurge a bit on the notoriously pricey saffron.
Gnudi With Saffron Cream Sauce and Spinach
Ingredients
Gnudi
- 1 1/2 cups ricotta cheese
- 3 egg yolks
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan
- 3/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
- Oil for frying
Saffron Cream Sauce
- 2 hand fulls of cleaned baby spinach with stems removed
- 1/4 cup of freshly grated Parmesan cheese
- 1/4 teaspoon saffron place saffron in 3 tablespoons of room temperature water and let steep for 10 minutes
- Splash about 1 1/2 tablespoons of white wine
- 1 1/2 cups table cream or heavy cream
- 1/4 cup Parmesan
- Salt to taste
Instructions
Gnudi With Saffron Cream Sauce and Spinach
- Drain the ricotta using paper towel to soak up extra liquid. Use about 3-4 paper towels to remove as much liquid as you can.
- Add the egg yolks to the ricotta, add in the flour, Parmesan, salt and pepper, and stir until evenly combined. Avoid over mixing but make sure ingredients are thoroughly distributed throughout dough.
- On a very lightly floured surface, roll out gnocchi dough into thin logs. Use a knife or bench scraper to cut your log into small pieces that are just under an inch.
- Carefully place your gnocchi in the pot of boiling water and boil for less than a minute. The gnocchi will start to float.
- Once they float, take out and place into hot plan with oil and fry the gnocchi until golden.
- Deglaze with the splash of white wine and cook for about 1 minute. Add the heavy cream and spinach and bring to a boil, add another 1/4 cup of grated Parmesan and add the saffron liquid at the end of cooking and serve hot.
