Description
Sbatui gnocchi from Lessinia are rustic, hand-scraped dumplings made by whisking flour with salted hot water.
Ingredients
Scale
- 2 cup water (remove 1 tbsp from the second cup, because converting from metric measurements is inexact)
- 2 ½ cup flour
- 1/3 cup Parmigiano Grana Padano cheese, grated fine
- 1/3 cup Monte Veronese Stravecchio cheese (preferably from Lessinia), grated
- ¾ cup butter (lightly browned in a saucepan over low heat)
Instructions
- First, Heat a pot of salted water to 160 ° F. (Note: Americans never put enough salt in their water: it should taste like seatwater.)
- Next, sift the flour into a heat-resistant bowl, add 2 cups of the hot, salted water and whisk vigorously until the mixture is smooth.
- Transfer the dough onto a flat plate.
- Bring the salted water to a full boil.
- Scrape small bits of the batter into boiling water
- With a knife, scrape small, irregular pieces of dough off of the edge of the plate and into the boiling water. Cook for 15 min.
- Once cooked, layer in a heat resistant dish with the grated cheeses and the lightly browned butter.
- Serve very hot. Eat immediately.
Notes
A note about the cheeses: Grana Padano cheese is aged 9 months. It is made in across northeastern Italy, though the best known version in the US comes from Emilio-Romagna, in the Po River valley.
Stravecchio, which means “extra old,” is aged much longer and comes only from Verona. The aging creates a different flavor profile.