A note on Gnocchi di Semolina
January 3rd, 2013
Not sure why but I hadn’t made gnocchi di semolina in a long, long time. I served it for a primo on Christmas night. Just for the luxury, I served the golden discs on either side of a ramekin of garlic flan. Semolina is simply hard wheat flour and I prefer a medium-coarse grind, though here in the USA I could find only a fine grind, and it was fine. I’m not sure why it’s even called gnocchi but it is. Semolina gnocchi was one of the first primi that I fell in love with when I first went to Italy. A woman named Fernanda made it for the grocery store in Camucia and I was at the counter every time it was expected. I assumed it was difficult because it was so incredible rich, but the truth came out–it is so easy! Therefore, it’s a good choice for these after-holidays weeks when maybe you’ve seen too much of your kitchen. Bring 6 cups of milk almost to a boil, then steady the heat and slowly incorporate 2 cups of semolina. You just stir it awhile, as you would polenta, maybe for 7-10 minutes. Remove it from the flame and stir in 3-4 tablespoons of butter, 3 beaten yolks, and then 1/2 cup of parmigiano. Mix well, season with salt, pepper, and grind or two of nutmeg, and pour it on a slab, or the counter, and flatten it out. With a glass, cut out circles and arrange them in a large buttered baking dish, sprinkle with more parmigiano–maybe 1/4 to 1/3 cup– and 3 tablespoons of melted butter. Bake at 350 degrees until golden and crispy. About 20 minutes. With a salad and a big glass of Friulian white wine, such as one from Venica & Venica, this makes a cosy supper by the fire. I love the leftovers, reheated the next day. Easy, simple, rich.
The recipe makes about 33 circles. There’s a finished photo on page 92 of The Tuscan Sun Cookbook. I forgot, in my rush to the table, to take one when I served this last week. The garlic flan I mentioned , also easy, is on page 158. Do not fear the garlic; blanching it tames the fierceness. The flan makes a magnificent first course for a dinner involving roasted meats. When I made it recently, guests started spreading it on the bruschette I made with our new olive oil. That was a treat for the gods. All good wishes for 2013. It looks like a grand year coming up.
Happy New Year to you and Ed. And thanks for another wonderful recipe. I will begin my year in much the same manner as I wrote about last year, “On the Beach with Frances Mayes” as I am awaiting the arrival of your book, Swan, to tuck into my suitcase.
Oh my gosh, I have been in love with this dish forever. I made it for Christmas and everyone adores it! So simply but so delish
Happy New Year to you, Frances!
I’m surprised at how easy it seems to be. I thought gnocchi involved potatoes. I received The Tuscan Sun Cookbook for my birthday in December and haven’t had a chance to use it yet. Maybe this will be my premier dish. Happy New Year!
Dear Frances,
This recipe looks wonderful and I can’t wait to try it. I agree with you about the coarser semolina and wonder if I’ll be able to find it online somewhere, as I also can’t find it in the store.
The garlic flan also sounds delicious.
Cheers,
Jenifer
Happy New Year, Frances! Our holiday season is just about over and we have enjoyed every minute of it. Since our fall was a whirlwind of travel, we will be happy to settle in at home for the next few months and are looking forward to sleeping in our own bed for a while.
We are contemplating returning to Italy again in December of next year. We want to bring our youngest son with us who, at 23, has not traveled beyond the United States before, so he can experience some of the joys that we experienced. (Our oldest son went to Japan and Germany while still in his teens and considered those life-defining events. A taste of culture beyond our own is a good thing and we’d like to have our youngest son experience this as well. I also must admit that there’s something to be said about having another driver more familiar with driving a standard shift than I have become after too many years of putting a car in ‘drive’! My first attempt to drive in Cortona had me chugging out in third gear–an omen, I feared! They say it is like riding a bicycle but I’m not so sure…)
We’d read in your books about Cortona around Christmas but wondered if we would be encountering weather that was more of a challenge than a pleasure. We’re not expecting sunshine and warm temperatures but would like to know whether ice and snow could be part of the plan were we to go there in December. What do you think?
We have brought home more than just a memory of Italy from our travels (and I’m not just talking about the pottery from Deruta, either). My wife made some gnocchi and I hope to make a foccacia this Sunday–both learned at a cooking class we took from your neighbor in the hills behind the Italianis–and we have a manual pasta machine now to explore more of the pasta options. Your gnocchi di Semolina reminds me very much of the wonderful polenta Ivan made for us in his kitchen: We still can feel the warmth of their kitchen from that wonderful meal!
With best wishes for the new year. The best is yet to come! -Scott
Scott–Just follow the weather reports there every now and then over the next weeks. You can encounter nasty weather around Christmas, of course, but somehow we never have. A little sprinkle of snow, a day or two of wind, that’s about the extent we’ve experienced. But last year was an unusually cold winter with lots of ice. Love the clear, clear blue winter days there…and it’s great to be there during the holidays. Frances
I just finished reading Every Day in Tuscany and loved the recipes. I have an organic garden and always have a lot of tomatoes, eggplant, & squash every season. In the book you talk about Domenica and you putting up tomatoes-could I get this recipe? Also, Ivan’s squash preserves recipe and Fiorella recipe for putting up eggplant. This would help me in having the garden all year long.
Thanks
Sounds delicious–I will try it. Steve is visiting with one of his children and a friend, so this would be a good time. All the Christmas goodies I made from your recipes were inhaled quickly, by the way, and delicious! And the gifts of your oiL (and Tuscan Sun Cookbook, too) were enthusiastically received and everyone raved, as usual!
All good wishes for 2013 to you all, too. All I’ve seen are enthusiastic thoughts and wishes about this new year–it’s nice to be surrounded by so much optimism after years of everyone feeling bummed out. I feel the optimism, too. It feels good, doesn’t it?
All the best,
Jeff
This looks like the ultimate comfort food for the depths of winter! I must try it soon!
Frances,
The word gnocchi interests me too. Culinarily, it means dumplings, but it is also slang for a blockhead or a dummy… Oddly, many culinary words are used for slang expressions – some even vulgar. But the wonderful little patties of semolina in your recipe in no way resemble those other “dumplings” made of potato, flour and air. They are an entirely different thing!!! I never know which I prefer – when they are at their best the potato and semolina forms are both sublime!
An older cookbook on my shelves puts foods in the Italian regions of origin and places Gnocchi di Semolina in Lazio – Rome to be exact. One article I read suggests that they were brought to Rome by the Roman legions – probably from the Middle East. It also suggests that the word gnocchi comes from the word “nocchio” an Italian word for a knot of wood that they resemble. The “other,” or potato gnocchi, are a form considered a more recent innovation and are found all over Italy.
A local sfoglina (pasta maker) in Ravenna makes Gnocchi di Semolina often and sells them in her booth at the mercato – all buttered, cheesed and ready to enter the oven. It is the kind of “pre-made food” that I prefer over the many alternatives.
When Semolina was not readily available in the United States, we often used Cream of Wheat to create the Gnocchi di Semolina. With the added milk, egg and cheese it produced a respectable gnocco with a grainy consistency. I have often wondered why they could not be made of polenta – but I am sure they would still be considered polenta… Something in the back of my mind screams. “You have seen a recipe for polenta cakes treated as Gnocchi di Semolina!” At the moment, I cannot tell you where…
But as you suggest, they are divine as you presented them – perfect simplicity!!! Simplicity is always good to me!!!
Thanks for sharing!!!
Yes, Riki–the origins are interesting. I’ve been told in Tuscany that gnocchi in dialects means knuckle–the shape of potato gnocchi. But the semolina ones are golden discs. Guess all are good!! Frances
Frances
wish you a wonderful new year in 2013.
I’ve read《Under the Tuscan Sun》over 5 times,its really awesome.
And I’ve brought《Everyday in Tuscany》in last month,and its awesome as《Under the Tuscan Sun》as well.
Frances, thanks for your advice on a Christmas Eve menu. We tried to be as authentic as possible with a bit of Southern US thrown in. We began with plates of antipasti already at the tables — olives, carrots and celery, rolls of salami, crostini with hummus and olive tapenade. We made the wild mushroom lasagne and pasta (penne) with sausage and four cheeses from the cookbook, which my husband and I served to the tables. Then, when people were ready, they could get up and serve themselves the meat course. We made Ed’s pork roast, and also made two side dishes — collards with black-eyed peas and sweet potatoes with apples (not a sweet dish), as well as flatbread with dipping oil. For dessert we had blueberry, fig and peach pies and boiled custard (a family tradition). Everyone seemed to enjoy the menu, including an Italian-born inlaw! Each year we try something different, and this year was certainly a hit. Thanks for your suggestions! Linda
Frances…
Now it is all making sense… I looked at my knuckles and could see the shape and fork tine indentations of the potato gnocchi! The semolina “nocchi” are those disk shaped knots of wood that fall from a sawn piece of lumber.
The names of pasta shapes always interest me! There are so many! Some are humorous and have a history. Others names are as elegant as the shape they indicate. Others turn my face red… Fascinating too is how the shapes may have two or three different names – they change depending on where you are.
It is difficult to favor one pasta form over another… I never ate Lasagne that I did not like! Mamma Pazzini’s pea lasagna was perfection personified! I knew from the first bite that I was eating art! For me, spaghetti is never better than when it is Spaghetti allo Scoglio! Gnocchi di patate achieved its culinary climax for me when my friend Giusy paired them in a reduced cream sauce with shreds of red radicchio. It was very rich, but it was wonderfully tasty! Tagliolini cannot be any better than it is when prepared in brodo and served as a soup!!! The brodo is the perfect vehicle for those narrow slices of thin egg pasta. Unfortunately, the list of the kinds of Italian pasta goes on and on – as many as 350 kinds – and I do not believe that I have ever met anyone who has tried them all.
But Gnocchi di Semolina are indeed special! They stand out because they are so very different from those thinly rolled forms of egg and semolina that we all know. Served with two magic ingredients – butter and parmigiano – what could be better???
I am sure that we could talk about nothing but pasta and have a conversation that would last quite a lengthy time…
Viva la pasta!
Hi Frances,
Thanks for your kind wishes. My friend’s surgery is Jan. 29. If she enjoys reading UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN, I’ll get her BELLA TUSCANY. My guess is – she’ll enjoy it.
Kathy
loveslit.blogspot.com
Hi Frances!
Your stories and recipes have been by my side for the better part of a decade now. Everyday in Tuscany has so many cooking stains that some of the recipes are no longer readable (I’ve made every single one of them). Thank you SO much for this beautiful window into the world of Tuscan cooking and culture!
I have a question for you….For years, I enjoyed pasta and pizza like anyone else…happily and in larger than necessary quantities. Now, however, I have this pesky wheat allergy that means all those amazing things are off limits. I’ve found alternatives, and if I do it myself, its very near the “real” thing. However, I’m curious if that problem exists in Italy and how its affecting the culture and the cooking?!
Thanks again for the beauty and inspiration you bring to my library and my kitchen!
Cheers,
Rebecca
rebeccabee.blogspot.com
Rebeca, good for you for being inventive! Yes, you now see gluten-free items in markets and occasionally on menus. Not like here but it’s a growing awareness. Frances
Hello Frances…I’ve just read your “Climbing Aconcagua” and would like to ask how and why you came to write it. Might Vera Watson, to whom you dedicated it, be the climber lost on Annapurna in August ’78? I sense a deep and somber story.
Thank you for your joyous writing of Tuscany! Best, Cathy DeLeo
Catherine, yes, Vera was a friend who worked with my husband. We were so thrilled that she went on the Aconcagua expedition and then shattered at what happened. Her death haunted me and I wrote the poem because of that. Frances
Hello Frances-
I’ve bought all your books, including the “Under the Tuscan Sun” cookbook. I recently made the Torte Della Nonna, and the Gnocchi with the Semolina flour, and made the pears and marscapone for dessert- I must say they were delicious and fun to make!! I have not been to Italy yet, but when I do Tuscany is where I want to go. I am completely obsessed with all things Italian, especially interior design!!! My dream is to one day purchase a property there. Just to have an excuse to really take a vacation. Thank you for inspiring me to try different dishes and turn my house into a little Tuscan villa in New England!!
Hello Frances,
I am intrigued with the Movie “Under the Tuscan Sun”. I feel that my life is pointless and mundane. I have many ideas that I want to try and places to see. But the thing holding me back it the proper funds. How can one make their dreams a reality on a shoe-string budget leaving in little ol’ Vermont. Any ideas????!!!
Thanks,
Nicole
Nicole, Hard to say! Such a big question. Think of what the first thing you can do would be. Not the whole dream, but the first step, then figure out how to take that step. Small changes build to big ones. Sorry I don’t have a big ticket answer! Good luck–Frances