Yesterday was shopping day and I bought some prawn meat and decided to marinate it overnight in a mix of garlic, chilli and olive oil. When I got home this afternoon a quick scan of the fridge and the presence a tub of light ricotta on the top shelf helped me decide that it was a gnocchi night. I make my gnocchi with gluten free flour so its very light and as it turned out was the perfect accompaniment to my prawns.
I love making gnocchi, whether it be potato or ricotta based. The trick is to not make the dough too dry. Prior to discovering I was gluten intolerant I made gnocchi a few times with normal flour and I have found that it's not only easier to make with gluten free flour but also gives a lighter result.
I found my gnocchi recipe on the internet and then adapted it to be gluten free.
500gm Ricotta
2/3 cup grated Parmesan
2 large Eggs
1tsp Salt
1 1/2 cups Plain Gluten Free Flour (plus 1 cup extra just in case)
Put all ingredients except flour in a bowl and mix until well combined. Then gradually sift in flour until it reaches a workable consistency. It needs to be rolled into a snake to create the individual gnocchi so the consistency should be soft but not so damp that it's really sticky. Flour a board or a piece of baking paper and divide into 4. Take each section and roll into a snake until it's about 2cm in diameter then cut into segments that are 2.5 cm long. Place onto a plate or a piece of baking paper and keep each individual piece separate. Continue until all of the dough is used up. This recipe serves 4 so if you are only serving 2 you can use half the amounts to begin with or you can wrap up half the dough and store in the fridge over night. Another option is to freeze any excess gnocchi once cut, if you are storing it in a freezer bag remember to flour it well so that it doesn't all clump together in the freezer
At this stage I put a large pot of water on the stove and put the gnocchi aside while I started my prawns.
There's no real recipe for the next bit because I made it up as I went along. It helped that I'd been shopping yesterday as the vegetable crisper was full and I had heaps to choose from. And as an added bonus there are still plenty of fresh herbs in the garden. In a deep non stick fry pan I put in a tablespoon of garlic oil* a small bunch of chopped spring onions and some garlic chives, and cooked them on a low to medium heat. After a few minutes I added a handful of broccoli florets and some yellow capsicum and let that cook for a few minutes.
Next I put my gnocchi into the boiling water. Gnocchi is cooked when it floats to the surface. While the gnocchi was cooking I put my marinated prawns in the fry pan and turned the heat up little.
After a couple of minutes the Gnocchi was floating and I removed it from the pot with a slotted spoon, when the prawns were mostly cooked I threw in the gnocchi and added some fresh chopped coriander and a twist of lime.
As soon as the prawns were cooked it was ready to serve, with a pinch of Himalayan salt and some more chopped coriander.
Yum!
*garlic oil - where did I get it? I made it. I have a jar of peeled garlic in the pantry it's topped up with olive oil to keep the garlic from spoiling. It has several benefits, when I can't be bothered peeling garlic there's always some ready to use. I can stock up on garlic when I find good Aussie garlic at a reasonable price and not have to worry about it drying out. And it gives me the most amazing garlic infused oil to cook with.
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