Ricotta Gnocchi with lemon & sage butter

Ricotta Gnocchi with lemon & sage butter

• 300g ricotta
• 40g finely grated Parmesan
• 2 tbsp grated lemon zest
• 190g plain flour
• 2 eggs
• 50g unsalted butter
• 15 sage leaves
• Couple pinches of salt

Place the ricotta, Parmesan, flour, eggs and 1 tbsp of lemon zest into a bowl, mix thoroughly to form a soft dough.  Place the dough onto a lightly flour dusted surface.  Cut the dough into 2 pieces and roll out each piece into a 40cm rope length and cut into thumb size pieces.  Place the pieces onto a lightly floured tray or plate until ready to cook.

Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil.  Whilst doing this melt your butter in a large frying pan and add the sage and remaining lemon zest, keep an eye on the heat as you don't want to burn the butter.  Add the gnocchi to the pan of water, it will only take around 5 minutes, however no need to time as you will know it's done when the gnocchi floats to the surface.

By the time your gnocchi has cooked the sage should now be crispy.  Drain the gnocchi and add to the frying pan, we basically want to fry it until we get a nice brown crispy edge to it.  Once done, bowl up, drizzle over the remaining butter from the pan and top with the sage leaves.  This recipe should serve four.

Whilst you can eat the gnocchi as is, I served it on a bed of rocket along with some fried chorizo and drizzled some oil from the cooked chorizo over the top of the gnocchi, I think this really adds to the overall dish.  The gnocchi was so easy to make, as this was my first attempt I had made mine a bit on the large size, hence I now suggest a thumb sized piece.  We both really enjoyed this, with the ricotta as opposed to using potato, it made for a lighter dish and I will certainly be making this again.