This recipe, based on Elizabeth David's GNOCCHI DI RICOTTA in her book Italian Food, has become one of our most-often-requested house formulas. Requiring fresh, curdy ricotta, it yields succulent, tender dumplings that always beguile. But since fresh ricotta varies in texture, flavor, and moisture content, depending on the season, what the animals are eating, who is making it, and how long they drain it, we often need to tinker with the recipe, adding more Parmigiano-Reggiano for flavor, or butter for richness. If the cheese is particularly wet, we add a little more egg, or we hang it overnight in cheesecloth, refrigerated (or we do both). Very wet ricotta can weep 1/2 cup liquid per pound. Don't substitute machine-packed supermarket ricotta; flavor issues notwithstanding, mechanical packing churns and homogenizes the curds and water—you'll have trouble getting enough water back out. Tender fresh sheep's milk ricotta, if you can get it, makes delicious gnocchi and is worth the extra expense.
Having offered ricotta gnocchi four or five evenings per week for more than a decade, we have a large repertory of accompaniments for, and variations on, this dish. We sometimes add freshly grated nutmeg, chopped lemon zest, or chopped sage stewed in butter to the batter before forming the gnocchi. Or we form thumbnail-sized gnocchi and poach them in chicken broth for a delicate soup course. One of the nicest variations is to fold flecks of barely cooked spinach into the batter. These Spinach and Ricotta Gnocchi recall the Florentine mainstay, variously called ravioli verdi ("green ravioli"), ignudi ("naked" ravioli), or malfatti ("poorly fashioned," which they needn't be), and are sublime.
Although these gnocchi are delicious and delicate enough to serve with just a cloak of melted butter, I list my favorite seasonal accompaniments at the end of the recipe to provoke you to think of serving ricotta gnocchi often, and year-round.
Wine: Chehalem Willamette Valley Pinot Gris, 2000
