What if we could make gnocchi without flour? They wouldn't exactly be gnocchi anymore, more like tender little dumplings. The term is useful for illustrative purposes so that people understand what we're trying to achieve. We answered the original question a number of years ago with the help of Methocel food gums which allowed us to make potato gnocchi without the addition of flour or eggs. The one downfall with these new gnocchi is the fact that they degrade quickly as they cool. (Methocel products form hot gels.)
This year I wanted to make a light and delicate gnocchi without the addition of flour, which would be stable
at
cooler temperatures. I started with ricotta cheese. That is not actually true, I started with the idea of using transglutaminase as a binder. We have made temperature stable gnocchi with Activa in the past, highlighting ingredients from scallops to chicken. If we could make gnocchi with these proteins, why could we not make them with cheese, in our case ricotta?
It turns out that we can. We have made ricotta gnocchi flavored with toasted caraway and stabilized with Activa, thus concentrating the cheese flavor and keeping them as light as possible. If ricotta gnocchi are possible what else is within reach?
