These gnocchi are, like their name, the Italian version of the Austrian knödel. They can be made with wholemeal or coarse white bread – any bread, in fact, as long as it is good – and they can be as large as oranges or as small as walnuts. When they are big they are served with goulash, which is the traditional way, or with other meat stews. I prefer small canederli, dressed with butter, melted until it becomes just lightly nutty, flavoured with a little sprig of rosemary and a few fresh sage leaves or with caraway seeds. I use stale left-over wholemeal and white bread mixed together, with the crust left on. It is one of the most successful dishes one can make from the old pieces of bread at the bottom of the bread bin.
The canederli are boiled in stock.
You can make bread gnocchi di magro, for vegetarians, by leaving out the bacon and putting in more onion, parsley and Parmesan.
Serves 4 as a first course or 6 as an accompaniment to a stew
300 g (10 oz) wholemeal bread and good-quality white bread
about 300 ml (1/2 pint) milk
200 g (7 oz) smoked bacon
75 g (2 1/2 oz) unsalted butter
1 medium onion, very finely chopped
3 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley
45 g (1 1/2 oz) freshly grated Parmesan cheese
several tablespoons of Italian 00 flour
2 free-range eggs
pinch of grated nutmeg
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 litres (5 1/4 pints) meat or vegetable stock
1 tsp finely chopped fresh rosemary
4–5 sage leaves, finely chopped
Break the bread into small pieces and put in a bowl.
Heat the milk and pour over the bread to cover it. Leave for about 3 hours. You might have to add a little more milk after a while; it is difficult to be exact, but what you should have at the end is a moist yet solid mixture. Break it up very thoroughly with a fork. It is important to incorporate as much air as you can while beating, and for this reason you should not use a food processor, which would mash the mixture and make it gluey. After you have broken up the larger lumps of bread, however, you can use an electric beater. The mixture should not be puréed but should appear like wet cracked wheat.
Fry the bacon in a non-stick pan until it changes colour and part of the fat has run out. Cut the bacon into tiny cubes and add to the bread mixture. You can use a food processor to do the bacon, but keep an eye on it and stop it as soon as the bacon is coarsely chopped.
Pour off the bacon fat from the frying pan and put in 15 g (1/2 oz) of butter and the onion. Sauté very gently for 5 minutes, stirring very frequently, and then add the parsley. Continue to cook for a further minute. Mix in 3 tablespoons of the Parmesan and add the contents of the pan to the bread mixture, together with 2–3 tablespoons of flour.
Lightly beat the eggs and add to the mixture together with the nutmeg and salt and pepper to taste. Now mix everything together very thoroughly, lifting it lightly, using a large metal spoon.
Before you make the gnocchi, shape one dumpling and slide it into a small saucepan of boiling water. If it holds its shape, proceed to make all the dumplings; if it breaks, add a little flour to the mixture and test once more.
Put some flour on the work surface. Pluck out small spoonfuls of the mixture, shape them into ovals or balls and coat them lightly in the flour. This sticky job is much easier to do with moist hands: I keep a damp cloth nearby and wipe my hands whenever necessary.
Put the gnocchi on a tray lined with a clean tea-towel and put the tray (or trays) in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. It does not matter if you leave them longer.
Bring the stock to the boil. Taste and adjust the salt and then gently drop in the gnocchi. When the stock comes back to the boil, regulate the heat so that it will keep a low but steady simmer. Do not let the stock boil vigorously, or the gnocchi will break up. Let them simmer for 20 minutes and then take them out with a slotted spoon and put them on a board lined with kitchen paper to drain. (Keep the stock for a soup, it is even tastier than it was before you started the dish.)
Heat the oven to 200°C (400°F) mark 6.
Transfer the gnocchi to a buttered ovenproof dish that is large enough for the gnocchi to fit more or less in a single layer.
Heat the rest of the butter with the rosemary and the sage in a small pan until the butter turns a deep gold. Remove and discard the herbs, pour the butter over the gnocchi and sprinkle with a little of the remaining cheese. Put the dish in the oven for a few minutes and then serve, with the rest of the cheese on the side.
preparation
You can prepare the gnocchi in advance and then heat them in the oven, covered in foil, for 20 minutes or so. These gnocchi are also very good dressed with a tomato sauce, as is done in Trentino.
When you serve these gnocchi with meat, make them larger – the size of a mandarin orange. They look better and it also takes less time.