Thursday, March 10, 2011  Recipe: Gnocchi in Basil Gorgonzola
Sauce  I hate the man who eats without knowing what he's eating.
I doubt his taste in more important things. – Charles Lamb
Photo: Matthew S. Cain, Flickr ccl Gnocchi—those mysterious
little pillows that are cousins to pasta—are light and airy when
made correctly. But what exactly are they?  Gnocchi are small
dumplings. In Italian, the word gnocco translates to English as
"lump". The most common gnocchi are made of potatoes mixed with
flour, though they can also be made using squash, ricotta cheese
or even polenta. Gnocchi is served the same way as pasta with
tomato, cream, or sage-butter sauce topped with fresh grated
parmesan cheese.  Gnocchi recipes date back to the twelfth
century and are most common in the Northern regions of Italy.
Since gnocchi consist of "dumplings" and don’t need any special
skill or technique to flatten or cut, they are possibly even
older than pasta. The ridges common on gnocchi are one way to
shape them; other recipes