Recipe below: Gnudi with Nettles and Ricotta, Dressed with Bay Leaves and Butter
When I first started out on my cooking journey, I found myself setting up the kitchen for a bistro on 42nd Street. The place was called Chez Josephine. I was actually employed at Restaurant Florent in the Meatpacking District at the time, which would have been in 1985 or ’86, I can’t remember exactly. Back then it was still a real meatpacking district, with butchers in stained aprons and swinging carcasses on Gansevoort Street. Florent was friends with Jean-Claude Baker, an informally adopted son of Josephine Baker, who was opening the place as a tribute to his “mother.” Florent sent a few of his people over to help him out.
Jean-Claude was heavy into atmosphere, 1930s Paris, red walls and drapes, thrift shop chandeliers, unheated bathrooms, huge banana skirt paintings of his “mom.” It was a tight space, a tad oppressive, but in a cozy way. Along with Laura, another Italian American cook from Florent, I got to work figuring out a menu. Jean-Claude wanted retro—duck confit, lots of endive, frites, hunks of Roquefort, tough, bloody steaks. Laura wanted gnudi, which I had heard about but hadn’t yet cooked for myself. She showed me that it was just balls of standard ricotta-and-spinach ravioli filling, boiled up and then warmed through in either butter-and-sage or tomato sauce. Gnudi is a Tuscan specialty, named for the fact that it’s a pasta-type thing but not covered with pasta. In other words, it’s nude. I immediately understood the concept. The gnudi was a hit, blending effortlessly with all the oldie French stuff. Laura stayed on to become the chef there for a while. I went back to Florent.
So gnudi came into my life at Chez Josephine. It’s an odd dish, clunky yet elegant, a good addition to my repertoire. After my stint at Chez Josephine I made it a lot at home, until I burnt out on it. Then it disappeared from my rotation completely, until a few days ago, when, as I tried to figure out something new to make with all the nettles shooting up in my yard, a vision of nettle gnudi passed before my eyes.
It’s a springtime race with nettles. You’ve got to use them young before they go harsh. I’d already made soups, one smooth, one chunky with potatoes, and nettle fettuccine, and nettle pesto, and a nettle and spinach torta. Nettle gnudi seemed like a good idea, and it turned out be a really fine one, with a bit more depth and more sharpness than plain spinach. If you don’t have access to nettles, you can use Swiss chard leaves, or the usual spinach, or lamb’s quarters (which I see in Manhattan growing out of sidewalk cracks; maybe that stuff’s a little too pissed on, but you can also find lamb’s quarters at farmers’ markets this time of year). And since I have a bay laurel bush, I switched out the usual sage for bay leaves, with, I think, good results.
Gnudi with Nettles and Ricotta, Dressed with Bay Leaves and Butter
1 medium bunch of nettles, about 6 or 7 long stems, grabbed and cut while wearing gloves
1 ½ cups whole milk ricotta, drained if it’s watery (I used a sheep’s milk type I found at Citarella, which was was dense, with a slight tang to it; any good whole milk ricotta will be fine)
1 large egg
About ½ cup regular flour, plus more for rolling
¾ cup grated grana Padano cheese, plus extra for the table
A big pinch of allspice
Salt and coarsely ground black pepper
1 stick unsalted butter
1 fresh garlic clove, peeled and lightly smashed
6 or 7 fresh bay leaves (not California bay)
Get a medium pot of water boiling, and add the nettles. Blanch for about 2 minutes. This will immediately take care of their stingers. Drain them, and then run cold water over them, to set their green color. Pull the leaves from the stems, and give the leaves a squeeze to remove most of the moisture. Chop the leaves well, and put them in a medium-size bowl.
Add the ricotta, egg, flour, grana Padano, allspice, and salt and pepper, and mix well, adding a little more flour if it all seems too loose. However, you’ll want to add as little flour to the mix as possible, to keep the gnudi light and tender.
Get out a large sheet pan and dust it with flour.
Flour your hands, and then, using a tablespoon, scoop out some gnudi dough and roll it into a ball in the palm of your hands. I usually wind up with balls about 1 inch across. Repeat with all the dough, putting it on your baking sheet as you go and making sure the balls don’t touch. If you keep your hands well floured the whole time you won’t have a problem with sticking. You can put them in the refrigerator if you’re not using them right away.
When you’re ready to cook the gnudi, get out a large, wide pot. A wide surface area works best so you can cook a lot of gnudi together without crowding. Fill it with well salted water and bring it to a boil.
While the water is coming to a boil, get out a medium saucepan, and set it over medium flame. Add the butter, the garlic, a little salt, and the bay leaves, and heat until everything is melted and fragrant.
Add the gnudi balls to the boiling water, and cook them, without moving them around, until they all float to the surface, about 5 minutes. When they’re all floating, scoop them from the water with a large strainer spoon, letting the water drain off, and gently place them in a large, wide bowl (they’re delicate, so be extra gentle). Pour on the bay leaf butter. Give them a few big grinds of coarse black pepper and a sprinkling of grana Padano. Serve right away.