Potato and Ricotta Gnocchi with Bolognese Sauce

This was another one of those "What the hell am I thinking" kind of recipes. It looks very intimidating, it's a totally unfamiliar cooking concept, and it requires a certain exactness in measurements that I simply don't seem to possess. But yet again, here I am staring down a recipe I am determined to make and I am not about to let anything stop me.

Potato and Ricotta Gnocchi with Bolognese Sauce
8 restaurant servings

For gnocchi:
• 1 pound Yukon Gold potatoes
• 1 pound ricotta cheese
• 5 egg yolks
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt
• 6 ounces all-purpose flour – by weight – plus more for dusting
• 1 1/2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

For sauce:
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 onion, small dice
• 2 stalks celery, small dice
• 1 carrot, small dice
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 pounds ground beef
• 2 pounds ground pork
• 1/4 cup red wine
• 1/2 cup chicken broth
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 cup tomato puree
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste

DIRECTIONS
For sauce:
Heat olive oil in large sauté pan until it just begins to smoke. Add pork and beef and sauté until golden brown and cooked through. Break large chunks with a wooden spoon. Remove cooked meat with a slotted spoon and pour off all but 1 tablespoon of liquid left behind.

Return pan to heat and when it just begins to smoke add vegetables and sauté until golden brown. Remove vegetables from pan and pour off remaining liquid.

Return pan to heat and add red wine, scraping bits from the bottom of the pan. Continue cooking wine until it reduces to a syrupy consistency.

Add chicken stock, tomato sauce, and tomato paste to pan and bring to a simmer. Add meat and vegetables and bay leaf to pan and return to a simmer. Reduce heat to medium and let mixture slowly simmer for approximately 30 minutes, or until liquid has reduced to a sauce-like consistency. Season with salt and black pepper to taste.

For gnocchi:
Peel the potatoes and simmer until they can be easily pierced with a small knife. Remove the potatoes from water and let them cool for 5 minutes. While still warm, pass the potatoes through a ricer and let cool for 5 minutes more.

Meanwhile, in a medium-size bowl, mix ricotta, egg yolks, salt, pepper and grated Parmesan. (If the ricotta is too soft or watery, line a colander with cheesecloth and set it over a bowl. Set the bowl in the refrigerator and let it drain for 1 hour.)

Add the potato to the ricotta mixture and gently mix by hand. Be careful not to overwork. Add the flour in two portions, mixing by hand and being careful not to overwork. Let the dough rest for 1 hour before portioning.

When ready, dust a clean work surface with flour and divide the dough into 4 portions. Gently roll the dough from the center outwards, stretching to create one long, ropelike piece. The dough should be about 1/2- to 3/4-inch thick.

With a bench scraper, cut the gnocchi into individual pieces approximately 1 inch long. Remove gnocchi to a baking tray dusted with flour. To cook, bring 2 quarts water to a boil and add 2 tablespoons kosher salt. Add 8 to 10 pieces of gnocchi and cook until all the gnocchi begin to float. Warm 3 to 4 ounces Bolognese sauce in a sauté pan.

Quickly remove from boiling water and add gnocchi to the pan with warm Bolognese sauce. Toss to coat and serve immediately.

Finished product


Just, wow. I had no idea I could cook something like this. The pot stickers were awe-inspiring enough, but this was just off the charts. From start to finish, it took about two hours to complete the meal, from the gnocchi dough having to sit for an hour to putting the sauce together. But man, it was worth it! For starters, I am never purchasing store-bought gnocchi ever again. Ever. I mean it. This was kind of time consuming, but the taste is one meeelion times better than that Target brand stuff I bought. Light, fluffy, doughy - all good things. I didn't have a gnocchi board:

... but I managed fine. These are mainly used to make ridges to trap the sauce, but this sauce was so meaty and had so little liquid that it couldn't help but cling to the gnocchi.

And the sauce - wow. First of all, I halved the amount of beef and pork and kept the other measurements for the sauce pretty much the same. I added more of the liquid, like chicken broth, tomato sauce/puree, red wine and tomato paste. However, I simmered it on the stove without a lid so all of that liquid evaporated and we were left with just meat. We got it a little more soupy right before we served it, but it tasted wonderful.

I also made the full amount of gnocchi and froze the extras before I cooked them. When cooking the gnocchi, there was no time table on how long to let them cook before they were ready. I found that it only took about four minutes before they started to rise to the top of the water. I wanted to keep cooking them for fear of them tasting under done, but they were so good.

This is another winner, and it will forever have a place in my recipe box. This would be a good company recipe to make for a dinner party or another big event. The trick would be getting the gnocchi to cook and keep them warm until everyone has a serving, but we covered the individual bowls with foil and that did the trick.

Tip: To freeze leftover gnocchi, place them individually on a large cookie sheet and place in the freezer. When they harden, put them in a Ziploc bag and seal tight. If you just throw them in a bag all together, they'll freeze into a gnocchi blob and will be very hard to thaw and cook properly. They thawed nicely in the bag overnight in the fridge.

Update: A week or two later, I thawed the leftover frozen gnocchi to have for another dinner. The gnocchi held their shape, but they didn't taste as good as when they were fresh. They also seemed a bit more doughy than when they were fresh. They weren't bad, but they're better the first time around.