April 10, 2005 - Joanne

Ricotta Dumplings Recipe

1/2c whole milk ricotta cheese
1/2c rice flour
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp butter melted
salt and pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients into a thick paste. The dough should be sort of like dry peanut butter. Let the dough sit for awhile in the fridge after mixing (30 mins - 2 hrs). Then form into 1” long dumplings with your hand they look a bit like gnocchi. You can refrigerate these dumplings for a while before cooking I have tried making them in the morning and cooking them in the afternoon.

To cook bring salted water to a boil. Pop dumplings into the water and simmer until they are cooked through about 5-7 mins (depends on the size and thickness). To test remove a dumpling and cut in half and see if the color is consistent through. Uncooked dumpling will be more whitish. The center maybe slightly molten if you have had them formed for a while. You can also taste them!

Serve with curls of hard grating cheese or a light cream sauce, butter sauce or tomato sauce!

Makes about 18-20 dumplings.

After you form the dumplings you can freeze them before cooking them. Lay them in a single layer in a sheet pan which has been dusted with rice flour then put the whole pan in the freezer. Once the dumplings are frozen solid – overnight or a few hours later, remove them from the sheet pan and store in tightly sealed freezable containers or bags. To cook pop them still frozen into the boiling salted water – they will take closer to 7 mins to cook depending on the size. Test them for doneness the same way.