Ricotta Gnocchi – Not as Quick as Promised but Great Weeknight Meal

For years, I've admired a Serious Eats recipe that claims you can make fresh ricotta gnocchi in "under ten minutes" or "in less time than it takes to cook dried pasta."  I hoped that Serious Eats wouldn't pull a 30 Minute Meals-type claim (in which prep, proper cooking, etc. takes up far longer than the 30 minutes promised), but I was still incredulous that ten minutes could actually be real for gnocchi.

Well, recently I found myself with a decent quality container of ricotta and a pretty free Friday night, so I decided to give this recipe a go.  While I wasn't able to quite make the dish in under ten minutes, I do think this was certainly a 30 – 40 minute meal from start to finish (including making a simple sauce).  

My gnocchi was creamy and light, but paired poorly with my default tomato sauce (loosely based on the recipe version, but with canned fire-roasted tomatoes, which may have been the problem).  I'd rather a lighter cream or herb/butter sauce than an overpowering tomato sauce.  

The gnocchi itself was also somewhat uneven – many pieces had an even, smooth consistency and others were slightly lumpy.  One possible explication is that I made some inadvertent modifications to the dough.  I don't have a scale, so I kind of improvised the ricotta and flour ratios.  I used approx. 1.5 cups of the ricotta (instead of scaled measurements), and padded dry using the SE technique, hoping it would get rid of the amount of moisture I needed to expel.

I then started with approx. 1/2 of flour to make the dough, though ultimately used approx. 3/4 cup in total with flouring the work surface, etc.

I rolled the requisite number of logs, though I ended up with 10-inch logs instead of the 12-inch ones called for in the recipe, maybe because my dough was less voluminous than anticipated?

I then added the pieces to a large pot of salted, boiling water, but may have overcooked some of the gnocchi first thrown in the pot (perhaps explaining the textural inconsistencies?).  I should have been a little less shy in taking them out of the water!

I finished by briefly cooking the gnocchi in the simmering tomato sauce, and served the pillows with a healthy amount of parmesan.  I look forward to making gnocchi again, albeit with a scale, a better sauce, and a less shy eye when it comes to cooking time!