{"id":94117,"date":"2025-06-21T02:00:32","date_gmt":"2025-06-21T06:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=94117"},"modified":"2025-02-12T22:47:41","modified_gmt":"2025-02-13T03:47:41","slug":"cheese-gnocchi-from-medieval-italy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2025\/06\/21\/cheese-gnocchi-from-medieval-italy\/","title":{"rendered":"Cheese Gnocchi from Medieval Italy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"854\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/BiCWmv26uqE?si=oHP86qvDlmRstqvl\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Tasting History with Max Miller<\/strong><br \/>\nPublished 21 Jan 2025<\/p>\n<p>Groove-less cheese-based gnocchi from before potatoes were introduced<\/p>\n<p><em>City\/Region<\/em>: Italy<br \/>\n<em>Time Period<\/em>: 14th Century<\/p>\n<p>Gnocchi has been around for hundreds of years, and unsurprisingly, the gnocchi of the 14th century was quite a bit different from what we\u2019re used to today. Before the potato was even a twinkle in Italy\u2019s eye, cheese was a common base for the dough.<\/p>\n<p>The first mention of grooves on gnocchi isn\u2019t until 1570 when Bartolomeo Scappi writes about them, so this gnocchi is groove-less. The texture is very different from modern versions. It&#8217;s more crumbly, but that could depend on the kind of cheese that you use. Whatever you use, make sure it&#8217;s a cheese that you like, because this is essentially boiled cheese held together with some flour and egg. I may not eat a whole bowl of this, but it&#8217;s still quite nice.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<p><em>If you want gnocchi. Take fresh cheese and pound it; then take flour and mix it with egg yolk in the manner of migliacci. Put a pot filled with water on the fire and when it boils, put the mixture on a board and spoon it off into the pot, and when they are cooked, place them on dishes and sprinkle on plenty of grated cheese.<br \/>\n\u2014 Fragment of a book on cooking from the 14th century<\/em><\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><strong>Ingredients<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<p>1 lb (450 g) fresh cheese*, I used mild goat cheese<br \/>\n4 egg yolks<br \/>\n3\/4 cup (90 g) semolina flour, more or less as needed<br \/>\nHard cheese like parmesan or pecorino, for topping<br \/>\n*The original recipe isn&#8217;t specific, so I recommend that you use something that you really enjoy because it will be like 80% of the flavor of the finished gnocchi.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Instructions<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>If your cheese is firm, mash it until it&#8217;s soft. You can use a large mortar and pestle for this, but I just used my hands for this and the rest of the dough-making process. It&#8217;s messy, but works well.<\/li>\n<li>Once the cheese is soft, add the egg yolks and work them into the cheese.<\/li>\n<li>When the egg yolks are incorporated, add about half of the flour and mix it in. Continue to add the flour a little at a time until the dough starts to come together. You only want to use enough flour so that it forms a soft dough that can hold its shape. You may need more or less flour depending on the moisture level of your cheese.<\/li>\n<li>Divide the dough into three pieces (you can eyeball this, it doesn\u2019t need to be exact). Roll each piece into logs about 1 inch (2.5 cm) thick.<\/li>\n<li>Bring a large pot of water to a boil. If your cheese isn&#8217;t salty, add some salt to the water as you would for other pasta.<\/li>\n<li>When the water boils, carefully ladle some of the hot water onto a cutting board, then place one of the dough logs onto the wet board. Hold the board over the pot and cut off walnut-sized pieces of the dough with a ladle, spoon, or knife, letting each piece drop into the water.<\/li>\n<li>Boil the gnocchi for about 30 to 45 seconds, or until they float. Remove them with a slotted spoon and set them aside. Repeat the cutting and cooking process with the remaining two logs of dough.<\/li>\n<li>When all the gnocchi are cooked, place them on a serving dish, grate some cheese over them (use plenty for extra authenticity), and serve them forth.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tasting History with Max Miller Published 21 Jan 2025 Groove-less cheese-based gnocchi from before potatoes were introduced City\/Region: Italy Time Period: 14th Century Gnocchi has been around for hundreds of years, and unsurprisingly, the gnocchi of the 14th century was quite a bit different from what we\u2019re used to today. Before the potato was even [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[74,7,339],"tags":[1276,703,1388,1442],"class_list":["post-94117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food","category-history","category-italy","tag-cooking","tag-middleages","tag-recipes","tag-tastinghistory"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-ou1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94117"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94118,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94117\/revisions\/94118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}