- Hello. My name's Dan Pelosi.
I'm so excited to be here in my apartment in Brooklyn
to teach you how to make homemade gnudi.
"What's gnudi?" you ask.
Well, it's naked ravioli,
a pasta that's made primarily out of ricotta cheese.
We're making gnudi with brown butter, peas, and mint,
a perfect flavor combination.
I grew up eating ravioli, and I'm so excited
to have a new version of ravioli in my life.
I love brown butter.
It's the perfect way,
or one of many perfect ways to eat butter.
And the combination of peas and mint
is just bright, and light, and amazing.
This recipe uses ingredients that you probably already have.
I love it. It's super simple.
The star of the show is the ricotta cheese and also peas.
I use fresh or frozen.
Either way is the right way.
We have plenty of Parmesan, which we're gonna freshly grate.
We have our fresh mint, plenty of butter,
a couple eggs, and some flour.
Oh, and don't forget black pepper.
So let's talk about the star of the show.
That's ricotta.
Most times, the base of pasta is simply flour and water.
Today, the base of our pasta is our girl, ricotta.
We are going to, first,
get all of the moisture out of the ricotta,
so that we know that this pasta is going to stick together
as we cook it,
and getting rid of the moisture will ensure that.
Let me show you how we're gonna do it.
What I have here is a classic sheet pan,
some paper towels, and a spatula.
I'm gonna take two layers of paper towels,
and I'm gonna put them on the bottom of the pan.
So I'm gonna take this ricotta,
and I'm gonna spread it out in an even layer
on these paper towels.
Not that I've ever done this, but I imagine (laughs)
this is what spackling a wall might be like.
In my home improvement fantasies,
I'm spackling my walls with fresh ricotta. (laughs)
Now's probably a good time to tell you
I'm not a perfectionist,
but I do think it's important to get this
in as thin of a layer as possible.
So I'm really spreading it out.
And I'm feeling really good about where we're at.
Now, I'm gonna take two more layers of paper towels,
place them on top.
One and two.
And then I'm gonna press,
and let all that moisture seep through the paper towels.
I'm gonna peel these paper towels back
and you're gonna see how much moisture has seeped into them.
It's kind of amazing.
Look at all that moisture. Gorgeous.
Can you see me through it?
Not quite. (laughs)
I'm gonna gently, while making a mess, (laughs)
transfer this ricotta into the bowl.
I'm gonna let it sort of release
as much as it wants to onto the paper towels.
Not afraid to use my spatula to get in there
to make it happen.
You can see how it's forming a bit of a sheet,
which we love.
I'm gonna gently plop it into a nice mixing bowl.
The next thing we're gonna do is add all the ingredients
into the bowl with the ricotta,
so that we can make our dough.
The first ingredient we're gonna add
is grated Parmesan cheese.
Now, this needs to be finely grated
which is really the only important part about this.
You can do freshly grated, which we're going to do now,
or you can get the store-bought pre-grated.
I find that both of them are absolutely perfect
in this recipe.
My cheese is grated.
So I'm just going to measure out the cup that I need
of this cheese.
And I'm never worried
about having extra grated Parmesan cheese,
because pretty much sprinkle it on everything,
including my pillow before bed at night.
(crew member laughs)
I'm going to beat two eggs.
We're gonna add everything to the bowl with the ricotta.
First, we have our grated Parm, then we have our eggs.
We have some kosher salt,
plenty of freshly ground black pepper,
and then some flour, and stir to combine.
I've got my same sheet pan.
I've just cleaned it, made sure it's super dry.
I've got parchment paper.
Now, parchment paper loves to just roll up.
So my favorite thing to do is this. Ready?
Okay.
Stress relief, yes,
but also it just kind of helps the paper lay flat.
Ta-da!
Okay, gorgeous.
Now I'm gonna take a little bit of flour,
about a 1/4 cup, 1/2 a cup.
I'm gonna spread it out on the parchment.
What that's gonna do is give us a nice base of flour
for us to put our balls of gnudi in.
This is really important,
because this flour and then flour that we'll put on top
are gonna help the gnudi stay together as they rest.
So when we cook them, they'll have a little light layer
of flour on the outside, which will be
(tongue clicks)
chef's kiss.
It's very important to have everything
with a little bit of flour on it
because this dough is sticky.
So I'm gonna flour my tablespoon.
Get it nice and coated.
I'm also going to flour my hands.
You can get excess flour on the sheet.
No worries.
I'm gonna take my floured tablespoon, take a little spoon,
scrape it on the side of the bowl.
I like to have it nice and floured so it drops in,
and then just on the tip of your hands,
gently roll it into as really as nice of a ball as you like.
So I wanna talk a little bit
about the formation of these balls.
It took me a while to figure out what the right sort of,
like, energy level to put
(laughs) into forming these balls are.
I'm not a perfectionist, so I don't go too crazy.
The first time I made them, I formed little patties,
and they ended up looking like sort of naked chicken nuggets
which was not cute,
but it was really, (laughs) (crew member laughs)
(crew member laughs) it worked.
But I decided that really these wanted
to be sort of like an organic ball, you know?
But what I just wanna do is release you from any stress
of perfection.
And I just want you to have lots of fun
and make a nice little mess, 'cause you know,
that's all that matters.
I'm gonna fill this tray up with gorgeous little gnudi.
You wanna make sure that you've coated your gnudi
on all sides with a light dusting of flour.
This is going to help keep the gnudi together
when you cook it.
I'm gonna take these,
put them in the fridge for at least an hour up to overnight.
The longer they go in the fridge, the better,
but you really only need an hour.
Okay. We have our water boiling.
I'm so excited to make these gnudi.
Let's get going.
I'm gonna take a couple heavy pinches of kosher salt
and I'm gonna toss it in this water.
Put my top over here.
Grab those gnudi.
They are well rested, and honestly I'm a little jealous.
Now, this water's just like a gentle boil.
So we are going to take the gnudi.
We're gonna drop them in batches into the water.
You don't wanna do them all at once.
Take your time here.
They will, in about two or three minutes,
float to the top of the water.
That's how you know they're done.
Once they float to the top, you're gonna take them out,
put 'em on your serving tray to rest, and add more gnudi in
until you've completed the whole batch.
Meanwhile, I'm gonna get going on our brown butter sauce.
The reason why I love to brown the butter
is that it adds a gorgeous level of flavor to the butter.
You haven't had butter like this.
Well, unless you've had brown butter.
It gives it a nuttiness
that is just gonna take this dish to another place.
So what we're gonna do is whisk the butter over medium
for about five to six minutes.
You'll see that it actually starts to brown.
You don't want it to get too dark,
but you just wanna get it
to a really beautiful warm brown place.
About halfway through, we're gonna add some mint leaves in
and let those crisp up.
As soon as they get nice and crispy,
we'll take them out
and we'll put them on a plate to save for later.
These crispy mint leaves are gonna be delicious
on top of the pasta.
Color wise, we're looking for a medium brown.
We're doing brown butter, not burnt butter.
There is a difference, and you'll really be able to see it.
Keep in mind that
after the butter has gotten to its brown place,
we are gonna add the peas to warm them up a little bit.
So really go less brown than you might think
if you're a little worried.
(gentle upbeat music)
There you have it.
Super easy, super delicious.
I hope you make these gnudi at home.
You can check out the recipe in Delish's quarterly mag.
And you can check out more recipes at delish.com,
and more of my recipes at danpelosi.com.
You gotta go make them, and you gotta tell me about it.
I can't wait to see.
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(mouse clicks)
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