Gnocchi

The first time I had gnocchi—sort of a cross between pasta and a dumpling— was in Venice, and it was great! So of course I had to try to make my own. Mine weren’t as spectacular, but after a few more tries, I got it. The key is to only add enough flour for the dough not to be sticky anymore; otherwise, they’ll be too heavy. When you boil them, you can tell whether the dough is okay. If the gnocchi start to feather and fall apart when you boil them, you need more flour. If they don’t float after 2 minutes, they have too much flour. This is another dish that works well with a nice green salad.

This soba gnocchi is one of the most popular dishes at my Chicago restaurant, Takashi. My customers love it and often ask me how to prepare it at home. Well, here’s the answer! The recipe is a little challenging, but I guarantee you it will more than impress the guests at your next dinner party. You can prepare the gnocchi in advance, and even freeze it (be sure to coat the gnocchi with vegetable oil before refrigerating or freezing). You can also prepare the celery root sauce ahead of time. And like the gnocchi, you can freeze it, too.

These gnocchi are also called malfatti (which translates to “badly made”) or gnudi (which means “nude”) because essentially these are ravioli without the pasta—they’re naked! No matter what you call them, I ADORE these delicate little cheese dumplings. They’re little bundles of spinach and ricotta sitting on top of melted Fontina mixed with heavy cream, mascarpone, and egg yolks. A little bit of this dish goes a long way—right to my booty usually!

I’ve had a lot of bad gnocchi in my life. You know the kind I’m talking about: You eat three and suddenly your belly expands and you feel like balls of bread dough are rising in there. Gnocchi should be light and airy, like clouds! Over time I’ve perfected the secrets to great gnocchi and if you follow this recipe, even as a beginner, you will be successful EVERY time.

Gorgonzola continues to age as it is stored in the refrigerator, intensifying in piquancy as it does. To slow this process down, wrap the cheese tightly in plastic wrap and store it in the coldest part of the refrigerator. This sauce is a good way to use leftover Gorgonzola cheese.

It isn’t hard to make featherlight gnocchi. The main thing to keep in mind is this: the less flour you add and the less you handle the dough, the lighter the gnocchi will be. The less moisture there is in the potatoes before you start adding flour, the less flour you will need, so the following tips for making light gnocchi all have to do with removing as much moisture from the potatoes as possible: Don’t overcook the potatoes—their skins will pop open and the flesh will soak up water. Rice the potatoes while they are still quite warm and steaming—rubber gloves help. Spread the riced potatoes out in a thin layer so the steam rising from them has a chance to escape. Once you form gnocchi, they must be cooked or frozen immediately or they turn to mush. To freeze them, pop the tray with the gnocchi on them right into the freezer. When they are solid, scrape them into a resealable plastic bag.

Gnocchi are small dumplings made with cooked potatoes and just enough flour to hold them together. I swapped the traditional white potatoes for far-more-healthful sweet potatoes and paired the gnocchi with broccoli. The color combo is fabulous and so is the flavor, thanks to a sprinkling of Parmigiano-Reggiano. And while many gnocchi recipes include a cream- or butter-based sauce for tossing, these are served in a garlicky broth stirred together with a bit of Greek yogurt instead. They take a little while to make, but given the great taste and the powerhouse nutritional value of sweet potatoes—and just under 350 calories per serving—they’re more than worth the trouble.

I had these mini versions of stuffed cabbage, meatballs in radicchio, in Rome, near the Spanish Steps at Enotec’Antica (Ancient Wine Bar), which is a real haunt of mine when in the city. This is a total guess at their recipe, but it’s really tasty—try it, soon! It’s closer to you tonight than Rome is, I bet!

Gnocchi are hearty dumplings made with potato flour and semolina. You’ll find them in the frozen foods section of most any supermarket, shelved near ravioli and other frozen pastas. Have the spinach or chard washed and chopped before starting so this dish can come together quickly.

Yes, you read the title of the recipe correctly. I make gnocchi with ricotta cheese, not potatoes as you might expect. My grandmother taught me how to make them this way, and though they are less forgiving than potato gnocchi, I love their soft, delicate texture and flavor. They practically melt in your mouth. It's crucial to find high-quality ricotta cheese from a good Italian market, cheese shop, or gourmet store and then drain it, and to handle the gnocchi gently. Because this is more about the gnocchi than the sauce, the sauce is exceedingly easy to make, but nevertheless very tasty.

Frying sage leaves is easy and provides a real wow factor. The sage and chestnuts make an ideal foil for these pillowy gnocchi.

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

The zing of fresh lemon enhances both the peas' sweetness and the natural flavor of the spinach. The whole quick, creamy dish is bolstered by soft pillows of potato gnocchi.

Gnocchi à la Parisienne Parisienne gnocchi are made from pâte à choux, a versatile dough made by cooking flour and water together until the flour cooks, after which eggs are stirred in. It can then be piped into various shapes and baked for profiteroles and éclairs for dessert, or savory preparations such as gougères, or gently poached in water as gnocchi. Parisienne gnocchi are tasty, satisfying morsels that, like Italian gnocchi or any pasta, can be paired with all kinds of ingredients and transformed into countless dishes. They're excellent simply sautéed in butter. They can be additionally flavored with fines herbes, mustard, and cheese. At Bouchon, we don't serve much pasta or rice, so we use gnocchi as an interesting base for a number of our vegetarian dishes. They're not a classic bistro food, but the technique is a French one, dating back to before Escoffier. This recipe will make about 240 gnocchi, double what you'll need for the Gnocchi with Mushrooms and Butternut Squash . Once they've been poached, gnocchi can be frozen for a month to six weeks.

We love this dish on its own, but a sprinkling of Parmigiano Reggiano and fresh basil can be a nice addition. If you can get fresh ricotta, by all means use it here.

Active time: 1 3/4 hr Start to finish: 2 1/2 hr

From Daniel Boulud and Alex Lee, the former executive chef at Daniel in New York.