Ricotta 'gnudi' with pumpkin burnt butter sauce

One of the benefits in working in a semi-rural area is sometimes you drive past gorgeous farms that offer local produce. One such farm is Provelones in Donnybrook, where I recently bought some beautiful homemade ricotta cheese. I decided to use it to make some ricotta gnudi, basically gnocchi but not with potato, but ricotta instead.

This recipe was a bit fiddly, but I am proud to report it was very impressive and successful. The hardest part was definitely making the gnudi itself, but it was a fun experiment.

For the gnudi:

500 grams of ricotta cheese
1 and a half cups of plain flour (I used gluten free)
1 egg

Combine all ingredients along with some salt and pepper in a bowl. Thoroughly combine until a sticky dough forms. Bring a saucepan full of water to the boil. With wet hands, gently roll tablespoon sized balls of dough and drop them into the saucepan. I went for 'rustic', not really caring if the balls were on a uniform shape. I cooked about five at a time, then placed them on baking paper on a plate to cool.

For the sauce:

2 cups of pumpkin, chopped and roasted for 20 minutes
1 red onion, sliced
Large handful of baby spinach
1/4 cup of pine nuts
1/4 cup of butter
sage leaves

In a fry-pan, heat and melt the butter.Add onion. Bring the temperature to high so the butter begins to go a slight brown colour and onion is browned. Add the pine-nuts, spinach, pumpkin and sage. Allow spinach and herbs to wilt. Add gnudi, and toss to combine and heat the gnudi through,

Serve with parmesan cheese.