S6 E26: Naked Ravioli (Gnudi)

This week we're trying a recipe for Gnudi, a "naked" ravioli. It was new to all of us at Three Kitchens, and we had a great time getting to know this delightful little dumpling. You know us, we cannot resist anything dumpling-ish. 

This Gnudi is made with spinach and ricotta. You form it into little balls, much like making meatballs, then rolled in semolina flour and chilled to allow them to set. Then you boil them in salted water, allow them a little rest time again, and then pan fry with a delicious butter sage sauce. 

Erin confirms these are pretty easy to make and we loved them as a side dish. They're light and soft, with a silky melt-in-your-mouth centre. Give them a try! 

Get the recipe on our website. 

 

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Transcript

Erin W (00:12)
I'm going to do another, dumpling-like recipe and it is called Nudie.

and it translates roughly as naked ravioli

sometimes when we go into these blinds, like I don't know what you're going to be talking about. Do you know what I'm going to talk about? ⁓ yes. Okay.

Heather D (00:27)
know what you're going to be talking about. Do you know what I'm going to talk about? No.

You'll know when I, because I did mention mine to you before. So you'll be like, ⁓ right. I remember this, but I don't know what yours is. It was so fun.

Erin W (00:37)
Okay. boy, you're really giving more credit to my brain than it

All right, we started out this season heavy on dumplings.

I haven't even introduced us. Let's... that's right.

Heather D (00:48)
Yes.

That's okay, we did that at the top. There's a little recording that says, hey,

if they don't know what they're listening to and who we are. No, I'm just kidding. You could introduce us.

Erin W (00:58)
Okay.

It's the thing we usually do. You're listening to Three Kitchens Podcast with Heather and Erin, and we're jumping into a recipe.

Heather D (01:09)
us do it. And I'm coming in blind, so I'm excited.

Erin W (01:10)
Let's do it.

Yeah.

Okay. So we started off this season with two dumplings or dumpling-ish recipes. Your Monty, which were the little itty bitty dumplings. ⁓ I just say that word and I can taste it and imagine it and the smell of it. God, they were good.

Heather D (01:21)
Mm-hmm.

Erin W (01:33)
No, that's what I'm thinking. You really do.

Heather D (01:36)
You could make them too.

Erin W (01:37)
I know, I know. Okay, and then the other dumpling-like thing we made were the mochi, which was ice cream wrapped in a rice dough, and it was kind of like an ice cream dumpling. It totally falls in dumpling category.

Heather D (01:54)
yeah,

totally does. then there, and then, then. See, excited. Then there was the deconstructed dumpling lasagna that you did.

Erin W (02:06)
Yes, so

we took dumplings and we took them apart to make dumpling lasagna and now I'm going to do another, I'm going to call it dumpling-like recipe this season and it is called Nudie.

Heather D (02:11)
Mmm.

Okay.

Erin W (02:21)
nudie and it is Italian so it is like gnocchi in that it is spelt with a G and an ⁓ at the beginning and it translates roughly as naked ravioli

Heather D (02:30)
Okay.

naked. Okay.

Erin W (02:36)
Naked ravioli.

So the one that I am going to go after making is a spinach and ricotta nudie because spinach and ricotta ravioli would be something I think we would all love. But we are going to make this filling. It's gonna get mixed together.

Heather D (02:50)
Mmm.

Delicious.

Erin W (03:00)
And then we're going to roll it in some semolina and leave it in our fridge to sit while so that it kind of hardens on the outside or dries on the outside. And then we're going to cook them in a pot of salted water. Make a simple sauce.

and it's going to be like dumpling filling that's a little bit chewy on the outside.

and delicious on the inside.

Heather D (03:24)
No. Hmm. really. I'm trying. But anyone watching the video, I'm like, hmm.

Erin W (03:25)
Can you picture this, Heather? I can see your face is like,

Yeah, it had me curious because I was watching this and I'm like, how do you make ravioli filling without the dough on the outside?

Heather D (03:35)
Yeah, I...

How does it not just come apart in the water? how does the semolina, because semolina is like a flower, right?

Erin W (03:49)
Yep, it's kind of a coarser flour somewhat

like I would almost akin it to the texture of like a cornmeal, but it's made with wheat.

Heather D (03:58)
Yeah, but I would feel

like it would dissolve or like fall off in the water.

Erin W (04:02)
Well, so this is why it's going to chill in our fridge for like five, six hours, even overnight they recommend. So that outside will hopefully cure enough that the inside won't come out when it gets oiled.

Heather D (04:17)
Yeah, well,

I must.

Erin W (04:19)
in theory.

Heather D (04:20)
Huh, I'm very intrigued.

Erin W (04:21)
So.

I mean, I just love anything that's got like this spinach cheese.

filling going on. look really quick and easy to make because you're just mixing together a filling, scooping it out, rolling it quickly in your hands with the semolina so it doesn't stick to you, and then just letting it sit. So I feel like if I prep these the day before, let them sit overnight, and then boil them up, voila!

Heather D (04:50)
Are they

shaped like a ravioli, like a square?

Erin W (04:53)
No, they're just little round balls. So kind of like cheesy, spinachy meatball. I don't know.

Heather D (04:55)
Okay.

boy, we're getting into that territory again. It's like, is it a meatball or not a meatball? Remember when you made the tofu meatball with air quotes? Those, I actually liked those though. Don't make your face about it. I know they weren't your favorite, but I actually liked those.

Erin W (05:06)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I liked the meatballs

as well. I was more disappointed by what I did in that sauce. But if you want to hear about my disappointments, go back and tune into that episode because you'll learn a lot like I did and make it way better than I did.

Heather D (05:22)
No, they were delicious.

We should do like a roundup of all the disappointing, disappointing recipes that we did and things that didn't work out so great and just do like a total roundup of those would be funny. But maybe nobody wants to. Yeah.

Erin W (05:46)
Stuff that we've learned through failure.

Heather D (05:51)
Hey, that's how you become better at cooking and baking.

Erin W (05:55)
That's how you become better at most things. Learning

is not fun or comfortable and you don't feel great doing it.

so come down this little road with me. We're gonna have some naked ravioli. Getting naked.

Heather D (06:08)
Ooh, ooh

fun!

Erin W (06:11)
Is this what we can use for clickbait later on? know? Ooh, Heather D gets naked.

Heather D (06:11)
boy. Yeah, we'll tag it like heated rivalry or something.

Everybody will be disappointed that there's no naked dudes in it. ⁓ Just like all the rage right now. Nobody wants the naked old ladies. They want the young dudes with nice bums. That's what they want. Unfortunately, there will be actual no, no actual nudity or butts involved, but.

Erin W (06:23)
or naked old ladies.

⁓ okay.

Heather D (06:38)
Clickbait!

Erin W (06:40)
Alright, okay, I'm

stop this now.

Heather D (07:07)
I couldn't remember. Yeah, it's been a little while since we talked about her.

Erin W (07:05)
They're naked raviolis, Heather. There used to be a commercial

naked raviolis or nudies but they're spelled with G's, gnuudies if you want to be phonetic and they're called nudies yeah

Heather D (07:11)
Like,

duties. I kind of like that. That's cute.

Erin W (07:23)
These are really quick and simple to make, so it's not going to take too much to get into this. All the details in the amounts will be on the recipe that we publish on our website. But in a large bowl, we are mixing together ricotta cheese that ⁓ measure out and then let it drain for a few minutes, just in case you've got some extra moisture in there. Mine was pretty good. I didn't need to do that for too long.

⁓ A package of frozen spinach that I drained as well. One egg, parmesan cheese, oatmeal or bread crumbs, dealer's choice on that one. Fresh nutmeg, salt, and some all-purpose flour. That's all that went into these nudie patooties. All right, I'm done.

done. so mixed those up in a bowl and then using a cookie scoop scooped out a whole bunch of little balls of these guys and I scooped them into a bowl of semolina. So you know how like if you ever make a cookie that's covered in sugar you kind of put your cookie scoops in the bowl and then you shake them around and they get all covered in sugar and then you put them on your tray?

kind of the same method you want to go about when you're making these balls. And then you want to cover your baking sheet with just a little layer of semolina, just so that these don't stick to it as they're drying out. So once you've got all these little portions out sitting there, you pop this tray into your fridge overnight and just let it sit until the next day. And they get nice and

firm on the outside but still tender and

When you're ready to make them, heat a large pot of salted water to a boil and then cook them in small batches because the key to them not falling apart as we discussed in the first half aren't these just gonna go into your water. The key to this was

cooking them in small batches. So I'm going to say about, I think I did batches about six, six to eight maybe in a pot.

Heather D (09:29)
Is that so they're

not bumping around against each other and like...

Erin W (09:33)
Mostly so the water doesn't cool because I think if you're what when you put all that stuff in there and your water gets cold then it's not cooking anymore it's just warm water and then they fall apart and get all sad.

Heather D (09:48)
Okay,

Sad. little nudies.

Erin W (09:54)
you put these into the boiling water in small batches, cook them until they start to float. So you'll, you know, they'll kind of sit around, hang around at the bottom as they're boiling and then they'll start rising up. That's when you want to scoop them out and then remove them from that pot onto ⁓ a towel just to let them sit for a couple minutes again.

to let that layer on the outside cure so they don't fall apart more. And once you've got them all cooked up, then you want to heat up your sauce that you're going to cook them in. And so I cooked mine in a very simple butter and sage sauce. And that was it. So just melted my butter, added up sage leaves into it.

Heather D (10:25)
Okay.

Erin W (10:44)
Cooked it until it got a little bit brown and started smelling really good and the sage was crispy. then you pop your nudies in that butter, swish them around in it, fry them up a little bit and then they're good to go.

So really simple to make.

Yours, I think, were a little more fall aparty because I didn't leave them to sit in between the boiling and frying part. And I definitely had more fall apart issues when I was working on yours because it was the first batch I did so that I could get them to you. And I was like, I got to get these done quick.

Heather D (11:05)
No.

Okay.

Erin W (11:24)
get them out to the door, get them over to Heather, and I missed that step. I was like, man, these are kind of falling apart in my pan, so I had to be really careful as I fried them up. Like, yeah, there was a little bit of a, But definitely taking them out and letting them sit just for a couple minutes before they go into that. And then honestly, once you've got them cooked up, you could heat them up. Like cook them, fry them in that oil.

put them away into a little container and then pop them in your fridge and fry them up the next day. My husband had them later that night because I saved them. So they were pretty resilient once they were cooked, but until you've got them finished up there, they're a little bit delicate.

Heather D (12:03)
Hmm. And they are very soft. Like the texture of them is like, I don't know, I was trying to sort of compare to the tofu meatballs, just because I was thinking it's similar in the way that it's not ⁓ the texture that you'd think of it like comparing it to meat, I guess. So I was trying to sort of compare it to the tofu. And it was

Erin W (12:06)
series.

Boom.

Mm-hmm.

Heather D (12:26)
Not because the tofu was kind of spongy almost and this was just like I felt like they were just like almost melt in your mouth like really silky soft little nudies. I just want to keep calling them nudies. They're so tasty.

Erin W (12:30)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I like these a lot.

One thing I would do differently is I would blend up my spinach a little bit finer. I had used some frozen whole leaf spinach and while I gave it a bit of a chop, it definitely wasn't enough of a chop because there were some big long strands of spinach that made it kind of irritating to scoop and then you had to like pull the spinach out and, you know, deal with that. But I think if you used a chopped spinach or just chopped it better, I didn't.

do a great job I guess on that but that was yeah I liked these. My kids thought they would be great deep-fried like to have an even crispier outer shell to that soft texture on the inside I was like ooh you guys might be on to something.

Heather D (13:20)
⁓

Like just as is, do you think? Or would you like roll them in breadcrumb first or something?

Erin W (13:36)
I don't know anything about deep frying so you're... I don't have a deep fryer. Take him to a restaurant. Will you deep fry my nudies?

Heather D (13:38)
I know, neither of us really know.

They'd be like, pardon me? What do you say? No, but I see, yeah, I can imagine if it was a little bit, you get that kind of oily crispiness on the outside, because they're so, they are kind of delicate on the inside. But that's what I really liked about them.

Erin W (13:49)
what?

Yeah, I thought this was really tasty. think...

You could prepare these beforehand and then have them in your fridge to have as like a light lunch if you wanted to have just something simple for yourself for dinner. Like I think this is a great thing to make if you're just looking to cook something small for yourself or as a side dish.

I don't think this would be a main course that you could feed anybody. think it would be too much of maybe one thing. Like they're really good just sort of in that six to eight range per person.

Heather D (14:27)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, they're not like overly filling, although they seem like they should be, but they really weren't. Like they were quite light. I really liked them with the butter too, the sage butter, but I was also imagining them with like just a really good marinara or ⁓ whatever kind of.

Erin W (14:47)
Mm-hmm.

Heather D (14:59)
Like maybe if you like a cream sauce, cream's not my thing, but I can imagine with like almost like a carbonara style, like a creamier sauce would be good too. Yeah, I think you could do some things with these. Like, jush it up a little.

Erin W (15:09)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

I think I would put garlic in it next time because I just love garlic and everything.

Heather D (15:22)
And how

strange to have an Italian recipe that has no garlic.

Erin W (15:25)
Right?

Heather D (15:26)
Although I was glad because when you dropped them and where I was like do these have like a lot of garlic or anything because I want to eat them right now but I was on my way to a funeral and I didn't want to be hugging people after eating garlic so it worked out to my benefit but I agree a little garlic in there would have been really good.

Erin W (15:28)
Yes.

Yeah,

I think you could put garlic powder in there if you wanted. think you could. ⁓

think you could fry up the garlic in the sauce if you wanted. ⁓

Heather D (15:51)
Yeah. Really interesting recipe.

Erin W (15:54)
Yeah, I definitely was a little bit anxious about them not holding together and I definitely felt a little bit nervous when I put them right from the pot into the pan and then I gave them one flip in the butter and they kind of did a little bit of shifting in their shape and I was like, no. Then I went back to my notes and was like, ⁓ they were supposed to sit outside the pot before they go in the butter. So that was a key step to just like.

Heather D (16:01)
Yeah.

Erin W (16:22)
kind of batch work it.

but.

Heather D (16:25)
Good to know. And clearly keeping them in the fridge overnight helps that all solidify together.

Erin W (16:32)
Yeah, the recipe suggested like five to six hours, but it was a good 24 hours before I got to them to cook them up for us because I just made this batter or this filling. It's not even filling because it's not in anything. I made the the nudie stuff. I made it while I made dinner the night before.

Heather D (16:47)
It's not in filling because it's not going in. Yeah.

Erin W (16:58)
because it was so easy so while everything else was cooking on the stove I just popped these ingredients together. I did it all by weight so that is always super easy. And then mix, mix, scoop, scoop and see you later. Let it be.

Heather D (17:15)
See you later, nudies.

Erin W (17:17)
See ya,

see ya, nudies.

Heather D (17:20)
Go chill in the fridge. I'll see you later. Now, these are really fun, and I'd never heard of it, never eaten it. I'm glad you came upon it and made it for us.

Erin W (17:26)
Mm-hmm.

fun times.

Heather D (17:32)
Mm-hmm. That's it.

Erin W (17:33)
All right.

Heather D (18:01)
Learning, ugh. It's like the worst thing in the world is to learn.