buttery, fried, apricot-stuffed gnocchi from 'pasta grannies: comfort cooking'

a sneak peek at the new cookbook

If I had to choose my favorite resource for all things pasta, I’d answer without hesitation: Pasta Grannies.

For those unfamiliar, Pasta Grannies is a popular YouTube channel that documents handmade pasta traditions and tells the stories of the remarkable women (and men) behind them. British food writer Vicky Bennison created the platform in 2015 when, while researching pasta-making for someone else’s cookbook, she realized that many of these traditions were disappearing because younger Italians were too busy to learn their grandmothers’ skills.

In 2019, Vicky’s first compilation of recipes, Pasta Grannies: The Secrets of Italy’s Best Home Cooks, won a James Beard Award for Best Single Subject. Now she’s back with volume two, Pasta Grannies: Comfort Cooking, where you’ll find not only Nadia’s silk handkerchiefs with basil pesto and Caterina’s tagliatelle with eggplant and salted ricotta, but also pizzas, pastries, and desserts.

On a personal note, Pasta Grannies has played a major role in how I think about pasta, and also how I approach cooking in general. I first discovered the channel when I was working my way through Oretta Zanini De Vita’s Encyclopedia of Pasta and challenging myself to replicate shapes I’d never heard of before. When I searched “how to make [insert niche type of pasta],” I immediately came across a Pasta Grannies video. And once I hit play, I was hooked. But it wasn’t because of the pasta—it was because of the grannies. Many of the women are a little shy, or a little awkward, having never been in the limelight before. Yet just behind the timidness, their genuine joy and dedication—to their food and their families—always shines through. Watching these women work makes any bad day better: There is no pretention, only deep knowledge that comes with years of repetition, and a particular sense of calm that only seems to come with age.

Too much rhetoric around food and, in particular, from-scratch cooking like handmade pasta, has become centered on perfection. There’s a seriousness—and glossy Instagrammable-ness—that can easily drive home cooks (myself included) away. As someone who’s pretty type A and who’s made a career through social media, I can easily fall into this trap. So when I start obsessing about the perfect cappelletti fold or farfalle pinch, Pasta Grannies is the place I go to remind myself of why I’m cooking and why I love making pasta. It’s a reminder that handmade pasta should look handmade, that pasta’s roots are not in fine dining but in bustling home kitchens where families made due with what they had. It’s about getting good, simple food on the table and sharing it with the people you love.

Vicky and her team were kind enough to let me share one of the recipes from Pasta Grannies: Comfort Cooking with you today. Of all the wonderful dishes to choose from, I couldn’t resist Irma’s Gnocchi di Albic, fat and fluffy potato dumplings stuffed with apricot jam and finished with breadcrumbs and cinnamon. These gnocchi hail from northern Italy, near Slovenia, and immediately made me think of the comfort foods of my Eastern European roots. Plus, as someone who doesn’t have much of a sweet tooth, I was both skeptical and intrigued by the idea of sweet pasta. I was not disappointed: The gnocchi were beautifully balanced and exactly the type warming dish I enjoy most this time of year. I ate them standing up, popping one after another into my mouth like the best butter-slicked, salty-sweet popcorn.

After a little trial-and-error, here are a few extra tips and tricks, and areas where I strayed a bit from the original recipe (also noted with an asterisk (*) in the directions below):

• Bake the potatoes: I don’t have a steamer, so I baked my potatoes instead (this method is generally my preference for potato gnocchi). Baking removes a lot more moisture than steaming or boiling, so I started with 900 grams (2 pounds; about 3 large) potatoes, which yielded exactly 500 grams after peeling and ricing. If you want to do the same, scrub the potatoes, prick them all over with a fork, and bake them directly on the middle oven rack at 425°F for about 1 hour. I riced my potatoes onto a paper towel-lined sheet pan to cool.

• Roll the dough a little thinner: I found rolling the dough closer to ¼ inch thick was easier to fold. This resulted in smaller gnocchi weighing approximately 15 grams (½ ounce).

• Keep the jam cold (and other ways to prevent leakage): Vicky notes that it’s important to remove any jam smears/runny juices so the gnocchi seal properly, and I couldn’t agree more. I found that even after sealing them completely, some of my gnocchi would start to leak sneaky jam juices over time. Here are some ways to help prevent this:

  • Make sure the jam is very cold so it’s easier to control (I cycled between two bowls of jam, so when one got too warm/loose, I switched them out).

  • Pop the assembled gnocchi in the fridge while you work to keep the jam inside solidified.

  • Boil the sealed gnocchi in small batches as you make them and let them cool on a clean dishcloth. Reheat them in the pan with the butter when ready to serve.

  • To echo Vicky: Be conservative with the filling! A small dollop is all you need; the sweetness of the jam will still come through.

• You might also notice that I went a little overboard with the butter. After briefly pan-frying the gnocchi in a nonstick, I tossed them in more melted butter with a pinch of salt, then doused them in breadcrumbs and cinnamon.

Oh, and don’t forget to get your copy of Pasta Grannies: Comfort Cooking, available now!

---

Irma’s Gnocchi di Albic
Apricot Butter-Fried Gnocchi from Trieste

Prep: 1½ to 2 hours
Yield: 36 pieces when each gnoccho is 30 grams (1 ounce) each

90-year-old Irma lives in Muggia across the bay from Trieste, right on the border with Slovenia. She worked for many years as a cook in a shipbuilder’s yard, until it went out of business and she retrained as a massage therapist. She also found the time to be a scout pack leader. This is her take on susine, plum-filled gnocchi which are popular in Trieste. Susine are violet skinned, yellow fleshed and a little bit tart; they have a short season and Irma liked the gnocchi enough to adapt the recipe. She makes her own apricot jam, high in fruit and pectin. When testing this recipe, we found that very un-Italian Seville orange marmalade also makes an excellent swap!

For the pasta
560 grams (1 pound 3 ounces) floury potatoes*
50 grams (1¾ ounces) or 1 small egg, beaten with a pinch of salt
150 grams (5 ounces / 1¼ cups) 00 flour, plus an extra 40 grams (1½ ounces) for dusting

For the filling
1 x 300-gram jar good-quality dense, firm apricot jam

To finish
25 grams (1 ounce) butter*
3 tablespoons dry breadcrumbs
Ground cinnamon, to taste

A potato ricer is useful for this recipe. Place the whole unpeeled potatoes in a steamer and cook them for 25 to 30 minutes until tender.* Place them in the ricer, and push through the mash onto a wooden board. Remove the peel that is left behind before ricing the next potato. You should end up with 500 grams (1 pound 2 ounces) of fluffy spuds.

Spread out the riced potatoes and leave them to cool for 30 minutes, then gather them together and form a well in the middle. Add the egg, salt and flour, then mix it all up to form a dough. Gently knead the mixture: all you are trying to do is incorporate the egg and flour, you are not trying to develop gluten, so once it’s a uniform smooth texture, stop. Overworking the mixture will make the gnocchi dense. This should take 1 to 3 minutes, and you may need to use extra flour if the dough is sticky.

I look for little layers and air pockets when I cut into my gnocchi dough so I know it’s light and airy.

Dust the board with flour, cut off a section of gnocchi dough and gently roll it into a layer about 1 cm (½ inch)* thick.

As noted above, I rolled my dough closer to ¼ inch thick.

Using a 6 cm (2½ inch) pastry cutter or an upside-down glass or ravioli stamp, cut out rounds—with all the sections you will get 36 rounds in total, that each weigh about 30 grams (1 ounce)*; you may have to gather up and re-roll some dough to achieve this.

Use a teaspoon to add a small grape-sized dollop of jam to the middle of the circle. Gently pull the dough over the jam to make a half-moon shape and pinch the edges closed, making sure they are sealed.

Be warned, if you get jam in between the two layers, the dough won’t seal properly, so avoid smears, runny jam juices, and adding too much in the first place.

Bring a saucepan of salted water to the boil, then turn it down to a low simmer and use a spider to lower the gnocchi into the water. Don’t overcrowd the pan; you may have to cook them in batches. Gently swirl the water to keep them from sticking to the bottom of the pan or each other. The cooking time will take 3 minutes when the water is gently bubbling.

While your gnocchi are cooking, melt the butter in a non-stick sauté pan over a medium heat. Stir in the breadcrumbs and fry them until they are golden.

Scoop the gnocchi from the water and place them into the butter in the pan. Fry them for a couple of minutes until they are golden on both sides. Finish them with a sprinkling of ground cinnamon.

This can be eaten as a treat at any time of day. You could also serve them with game such as venison.

I went a little overboard with the butter…

Recipe excerpted with permission from Pasta Grannies: Comfort Cooking by Vicky Bennison, published by Hardie Grant Books September 2022, RRP $32.50 Hardcover. All photos are my own.