Gnocco fritto

Lately I am very attracted by Emilia food.. this beautiful region has a large choice of homemade gourmand food. I use to eat gnocco fritto in Sologno, a small village in appennino reggiano. It’s a kind of bread dough, fried, that you usually eat hot with Parma ham, salame or local cheese.

with Parma ham

with salame Milano

I don’t have a precise recipe to give you, because final consistency depends on flour, humidity, kind of cheese used…

Let’s say that you use 1kg of flour. Take the right amount of yeast (levure de Boulanger) to raise 1 kg of flour. Mix yeast, flour, 1 glass of warm water, 3tbsp olive oil, 1tsp salt and 250g stracchino. If you can’t find stracchino cheese (it’s hard also for me in Paris) you can use 250g thick cream. Mix with your hands for 10 minutes and see what happens.. it’s too dry? Add warm water. It’s too soft? Add one or two spoons of flour. The final result should be soft but not too sticky; you should be able to shape a ball. Put dough in a big bowl, film and let it raise in warm place for 2 hours. Roll it thin (1/2cm or less) and cut it with your cutter. Cover with film and let it raise a second time in a warm and humid place. (I put trays in off oven with some pans of boiling water inside! Yes it’s true! In this way you can create a amazzonia clime) let it raise for 1 hour and then put your gnocco in boiling oil.

EAT ME!