Ricotta, ricotta, ricotta.  So versatile, so simple, so delicious when done well, and so awful when done wrong.  For most of my life I hated ricotta, thinking it too rubbery and tasteless.  That is, until I tried (quote unquote) REAL ricotta.  Not the stuff from the grocery store, but the artisan cheese that is traditionally the by-product of making mozarella.

Artisan ricotta is an entirely different entity than typical grocery store ricotta.  And for those of you who think I might just be snobby about these things, well, I must say it’s simply not true!  Take cottage cheese, for example. I have sampled and re-sampled artisan cottage cheese and compared it to regular cottage cheese…. and the result?  the grocery store variety is good enough for my day-to-day.  However, this is absolutely not the case with ricotta.

So now that we’ve established my ricotta obsession, let’s move onto the gnocchi!

About two weeks ago Steven and I decided to do a night on the town, complete with a few Berlioz pieces at the San Francisco Symphony and a dinner at the much renowned Zuni Cafe.  After two hours of wonderful music, we sat down to a late dinner at Zuni.  After perusing their tempting menu we decided on the ricotta gnocchi with brown butter sauce, along with their world famous burger.

The gnocchi were the first to arrive, and after taking the first bite I turned to Steven and said, “I just ate a little piece of cheesy heaven”.

They were that good.  If you are in SF, run, don’t walk, to Zuni to get these gnocchi.

Returned home, the wheels started turning and I decided I must make these at home.  After perusing one of my favorite blogs, The Paupered Chef, I came across a recipe that seemed like it might be as good as the Zuni gnocchi — Ricotta Gnudi from The Spotted Pig.

A week and a few cups of semolina later, I found myself fishing ricotta gnocchi out of their flour bath and dropping them into a vat of boiling water.  And the result?  Wonderful!  When you bite into them, the gnocchi basically explode with warm ricotta in your mouth.  Though that may or may not sound appealing to you, it is simply delightful.

The other thing about these little balls of deliciousness is that though they take time, the effort required is quite minimal.  MUCH easier than making, say, homemade fettucine or lasagne noodles since no pasta machine or rolling is required.  But even though they are easier to make, the effect is no less dramatic, and if you were to serve these at your next dinner party, accolades would most surely follow.

Zuni inspired Ricotta Gnocchi
serves 2-3

1 c. high quality ricotta, preferably sheep milk
1 c. grated parmesan
2 eggs plus 1 egg yolk
1/2 t. grated nutmeg
1/2 c. AP flour
3-4 c. semolina flour
Your favorite sauce (suggestions: brown butter with fried sage, bright and spicy tomato, light cream, pesto, bacon/cream/parmesan/parsley/olive oil)

Combine the ricotta, parmesan, eggs and egg yolk, and nutmeg in a bowl.  Whip until light and fluffy.  Fold in flour and mix until well combined.  Add more flour if the mixture is too sticky to roll into balls.

Roll the mixture into roughly 1 inch balls.  Pour a 1/2 inch layer of semolina into a baking pan, and place the balls in the flour, spaced about 1 inch apart.  Cover with the rest of the semolina and make sure the ricotta balls are well-buried.  Cover and refrigerate overnight.

The next day, carefully fish out the gnocchi from the semolina, gently shaking the balls to rid them of excess flour.  The flour that remains can be sifted and saved for a later use.

Allow the gnocchi to come to room temperature, and in the meantime bring a large pot of generously salted water to a boil.  Carefully slide the gnocchi into the boiling water and cook until they float to the surface, about 1-2 minutes.  Be careful that you do not overcook them, which results in a rubbery texture.

Serve immediately with your favorite sauce, perhaps browned butter with fried sage, a bright and spicy tomato sauce, a light cream sauce, or even with a crumble of bacon along with some olive oil, red pepper flakes, and parmesan.

The tumbleweed rolled and tumbled down the windy street as we sat in the diner. Little plumes of dust swirled in its wake, lit by the morning sun. I remember watching the tumbleweed as I ate my breakfast, thinking… where *are* we? I felt like I was in some eerie, abandoned Old West town, but my dad kept things light by making Wile E. Coyote jokes and doing voices from Looney Tunes because that’s the kind of guy he is :)

Who’d have thought that more than ten later I would open up my Mystery Box of vegetable from Mariquita Farms and find a close cousin of that tumbleweed. And furthermore, that I would cook it up into a cheesecake and write a post about tumbleweed and cooking.

But that’s far enough down memory lane. Let’s talk agretti!

A bunch of Agretti

Please do not judge agretti by its appearance. It hardly looks like a vegetable, but rather a strange grass you might find growing at the edge of a pond or an oasis in the high desert. When eaten raw, agretti is the slightest bit lemony, reminiscent of sorrel, and when you bite into it, has the tendency to pop, a little like a juicy grape. Cooked, it loses its pop but retains its flavor. Raw or just barely cooked it has a brilliant green color, which darkens after about 5 minutes of cooking.

When confronted with this vegetable I had never seen before in my life, I was a little… intimidated. The internet offered few ideas, and it isn’t mentioned even once in my LARGE stack of cookbooks… what to do? But of course! Cheese, eggs, herbs, more cheese, bake… this combination rarely fails me.

I’ve yet to see this vegetable anywhere besides vegetable boxes from Maraquita farms, but if you do happen to come across it, I encourage you to pick up a bunch and try out this unusual vegetable!

Agretti and Ricotta Cheesecake
Inspired by 101 Cookbooks

1 large bunch Agretti, rinsed and dried
2 medium shallots
5-6 cloves garlic

8 oz. neufchatel cheese (or cream cheese)
2 c. ricotta, drained for 10 minutes
a large handful of fresh herbs, chopped (I used a mix of tarragon, sage, and parsley)
1/2 c. grated parmesan
2 eggs

1/3 c. goat cheese, crumbled

Preheat the oven to 325. Oil a 7 inch spring form pan*.

Trim the bottom 1-2 inches from the agretti stems and discard. Chop the rest into 1-2 inch pieces.

Heat about 2 T. olive oil in a large saute pan over medium high heat. Add the shallots, cook 1-2 minutes, then add the garlic. Saute for 2-3 minutes, then add the agretti and very generously season with salt and pepper. Saute until the agretti has reduced to about 1/3 it’s original size. Allow to cool, then transfer to a cutting board and roughly chop.

Put the neufchatel into a large bowl and whip either with a fork or an electric whisk to soften. Add the ricotta, herbs, parmesan, and eggs and mix until well combined. Fold the agretti mixture into the cheese. Pour into the spring form pan, place on a baking tray, and bake for 1 hour.

Sprinkle goat cheese over the top of the cheesecake and bake for an additional 20-30 minutes, until goat cheese has softened. If desired, place the cheesecake under the broiler for 1-2 minutes until the top is golden. Remove from oven, allow to cool for about 15 minutes, then release from spring form pan. Serve warm or at room temperature.

*Note: if you don’t have a spring form pan, you may use a regular pie plate. Keep an eye on the cooking process though, as the depth of the cheesecake is quite different when using a pie dish versus a small spring form pan. You will likely need to cook the cheesecake for less time.

It’s not that often that I get fluttery thinking about cookies.  Most of the time cookies are cookies, and I could take or leave them (well, to be honest I’ll usually take them).  These cookies, however, are certainly an exception.  I think I could eat them everyday for the rest of my life.  They are so unique — a little crunchy, earthy, sweet but not cloying, buttery, and with just a hint of saltiness.

The first time I made these was years and years ago, when I was living in a co-op in the Santa Cruz mountains outside of Palo Alto.  We had a huge garden filled with tomatoes, squash, and all sorts of herbs.  There was a large sage plant growing alongside some rosemary, and through some fortuitous series of events, I decided to try baking a dessert with this strong, musty herb that people seem to either love or hate.

And the result?  Absolutely fantastic.  The recipe quickly became my favorite cookie recipe.

Anytime I take a plate of these cookies somewhere new, a very predictable series of events occurs:  Someone will ask what kind of cookies they are.  I tell them they are made with dried apricots, sage, and cornmeal.  People look at the plate with some trepidation.  A brave soul tries one.  Within about 10 minutes, the entire plate is gone.

Try them.  They are simply delicious.

Apricot, Cornmeal, and Sage Cookies
From Epicurious
Makes 25-30 3-inch cookies

1/2 c. butter
3/4 c. sugar
1 egg
3/4 c. plus 2 T. all-purpose flour
1/2 t. baking soda
1/4 c. chopped dried apricots
2 T. minced fresh sage
1/2 c. cornmeal
1/2 t. salt

Preheat the oven to 350.  Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a bowl mix the butter, sugar, and egg until smooth.  Sift in the flour and baking soda, mix until combined, then add apricots, sage, cornmeal, and salt and stir until well combined.

Drop tablespoons of dough onto baking sheets, about 2 inches apart (the cookies spread quite a lot).  Bake 10 minutes, or until pale golden.  Remove from oven, allow to cool on baking sheet for 1-2 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling

Uncooked Spinach Balls, about to be frozen

Steven’s grandmother Faela is a woman I wish I could have met.  She passed away long before Steven and I knew each other, so anything I know about her is gathered from old photographs, recipe cards, and stories told by Steven and his family members. One thing I do know is that she was a heck of a cook, with specialties ranging from spinach balls to chicken pie (with few vegetables and lots of chopped hard boiled egg) to brisket and much more that you may or may not expect from a culinarily gifted Jewish Grandmother.

Faela’s recipe for spinach balls makes (in her handwritten words) enough for a small army. Expect anywhere from 100 to 150 spinach balls depending on whether your interpretation of ‘1 inch ball’ is a little over, a little under, or spot on the 1 inch mark. I got about 140 from this latest batch. Unless you in fact are feeding a small army, this is probably many more spinach balls than you care to eat at once, however delicious they may be (and trust me they are delicious!). I typically freeze the whole batch, and then bake 10-20 at a time, as desired (which is often!). They are a great just-home-from-work snack to hold you over to a later-than-it-should-be dinnertime (often the case in my house).

Do you have any recipes that have been passed down through your family that are dear to you?

Faela’s Irresistible Spinach Balls

40 – 48 oz frozen chopped spinach (i.e. 3 x 16 oz bags, or 4 x 10 oz pkgs)
12 eggs, beaten
1 c. butter, melted
1 T. black pepper
1 T. salt
2 t. dried thyme
1 T. granulated garlic
4 onions, chopped (a food processor makes quick work of this)
10 oz. dry stuffing mix, or homemade croutons chopped/pulsed into pea sized pieces
1 c. grated parmesan or gruyere

Cook the spinach according to package directions, then drain.  Once cooled, squeeze the excess moisture from the spinach with your hands.  Set aside.

In a very large bowl combine eggs, melted butter, pepper, salt, thyme, garlic, onions, stuffing mix, and cheese.  Mix well.  Add spinach and stir until everything is evenly distributed.  Optionally chill mixture for a half an hour to make it easier to work with.

Working with slightly wet hands, take about 1 – 1 1/2 T. spinach mixture and roll into a 1 inch ball and place on a baking sheet (if you are going to cook the spinach balls right away, leave about 1 inch between the balls; if you are going to freeze them, you can line them up so that they are almost touching).  Repeat until all of the mixture is used up.

To cook the spinach balls right away, bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 15-20 minutes, until the stuffing is golden brown.  Otherwise, freeze the spinach balls on the baking tray(s) until solid (about 1-2 hours).  Remove from tray(s) and store in an airtight plastic bag in the freezer until ready to use.  To cook from frozen, preheat oven to 350, and bake about 20 – 25 minutes, or until golden.

Enjoy!

Steven about to eat a spinach ball!

I daydream a lot about cooking during the week, especially when I’m on the train. Its rhythmic click-clack, the morning fog, and a warm cup of coffee are just the right combination for daydreaming about things I want to cook. During the week not so many of those dreams become reality, but during the weekend I break out of my daydreams and actually head into the kitchen.

Last week Elizabeth David’s book Italian Cooking kept me company on my train rides to and from work. Ms. David is one of my favorite food writers of all time. Eloquent, elegant, humble, and humorous are all words I would use to describe her writings. Her recipes are less like instructions and more like suggestions. I’ve made quite a few things from her various cookbooks over the years, and I find they turn out best not when you follow her words and ingredient lists exactly, but rather when you use it as a starting point and utilize your own knowledge and creativity to complete the dish.

Her Polpettone recipe (Italian meatloaf stuffed with hard boiled eggs and cheese) is no different. I have an odd love of loaves of meat, and typically turn to Paul Prudhomme’s cajun meatloaf whenever the craving strikes. Moist, spicy, and with a wonderful texture, I am not sure it can be improved upon (except by using rolled oats rather than breadcrumbs — a personal preference that results in a more tender meatloaf). So, when I decided to make Ms. David’s Italian meatloaf, I fused her suggestions with Prudhomme’s technique, and added spices and other ingredients as I saw fit. The result? Fantastic! Don’t get me wrong, I am not abandoning my beloved cajun meatloaf, but this Italian version is different enough that I can definitely make space for both in my repertoire.

Polpettone: Italian Stuffed Meatloaf
Inspired by Elizabeth David

olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 large carrot, peeled and finely chopped
5-6 cloves garlic, minced
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 t. salt
1 t. black pepper
1/2 t. white pepper
1 t. dried sage
1 t. dried marjoram
1 t. dried oregano
1/4 c. catsup
1/2 c. milk
1/3 c. chopped parsley

4 eggs, lightly beaten
1/3 c. rolled oats
2/3 c. bread crumbs or stuffing mix
1 1/2 lbs ground beef (15% fat or higher is best)
1/2 lb ground pork

2 hard boiled eggs, chopped
2 oz. ham, minced
3 oz. grated provolone

Preheat oven to 350.

Prepare vegetable mixture:
Heat about 2 T. olive oil in a large saute pan.  Add onions and saute until softened.  Add the carrot, saute for another minute, then add the garlic and red bell pepper.  Saute the mixture until vegetables are softened, about 3 minutes longer.  Add salt, black pepper, white pepper, sage, marjoram, and oregano, mix well, and saute another minute or two.  Add catsup and milk, mix well, and cook for about 3-4 minutes until mixture starts sticking to the pan.  Remove from heat, fold in the chopped parsley, and set aside to cool.

Prepare meat mixture:
Mix the raw eggs, oats, bread crumbs, beef, and pork in a large bowl.  Using your hands, mix until everything is well amalgamated.  Add the cooled vegetable mixture, and combine well with your hands.  Divide the mixture into two roughly equal parts.

Shape the loaf:
In a 9×13 glass pan shape half the meat mixture into a flat loaf about 6 inches wide, 12 inches long, and about an inch high.  Sprinkle the hard boiled eggs, ham, and provolone evenly over the meatloaf, leaving about a 1/2 -1 inch border at the sides.  Now working with the other half of the meat mixture, take small handfuls, flatten it between your hands, and place atop egg mixture, creating ‘patches’  of meat to enclose the filling.  Take care to enclose the sides with meat mixture so no eggs or cheese will leak out.  Once you’ve used up all the meat mixture, smooth with your hands to make a compact, neat loaf.

Bake at 350 for 25 minutes, then raise heat to 425 and continue to bake until meatloaf is done, about 35 minutes longer.  Allow to stand for 10 minutes after removing from oven.  Slice into 1-2 inch pieces, and enjoy!  Serve on its own or with some spicy tomato sauce alongside.

The path to contentment on a Sunday morning for me involves good coffee, a little sunshine, perfectly toasted bread, and eggs with golden runny yolks.

This morning I woke up supremely hungry…. I think a stomach growl is what actually pulled me out of sleep and into the land of the awake. After putting on some coffee, I looked through the fridge and pantry to take stock of breakfast possibilities. bagel? no…. oatmeal? too slow…. leftovers from last night? delicious but too heavy…. eggs on toast? yes!

Equally delicious for breakfast, brunch, lunch, or dinner, these eggs are very versatile. Instead of tarragon you could use basil, parsley, chives, chervil, or even cilantro (I might add a little cayenne with the cilantro). I personally love the assertive licorice-y flavor of tarragon, and so use it every chance I get. Also, this recipe comes together in about 10 minutes, allowing one to quickly satisfy both hunger pains and a desire for a delicious breakfast on a Sunday morning.

Note: You can soft boil and shell the eggs ahead of time if you plan to make this for a large group. Also, if you prefer, you can used poached eggs instead of soft boiled.

Oeufs Mollets Estragon (Soft Boiled Eggs with Tarragon)

Per Person:
2 eggs
1 T. butter
1 t. tarragon, finely chopped
salt
pepper
2 slices rustic country bread, toasted

Bring a pot of water to a boil, add eggs, and cook for 5 minutes. Remove the eggs and put into a bowl filled with ice water. Allow to cool for a few minutes, then carefully shell the eggs.

In a small saute pan, melt the butter over medium low heat. Add the eggs, and roll them around in the butter, making sure the butter does not burn. Sprinkle with tarragon, salt, and freshly ground pepper. Roll the eggs around some more to make sure all sides are coated. The saute process should take about 2 minutes.

Place an egg on top of a piece of toast, and drizzle any extra butter from the pan over the toast. Serve the eggs unbroken and allow each person to release the yolky goodness at the table. Enjoy!