cooking.nytimes.com
You think you know what gnocchi are: small, fork-tine-indented potato dumplings served with pesto or tomato sauce. They’re starchy, thick and filling, and rarely made well enough at home to justify the work. But gnocchi don’t have to be only that. “Gnocco” translates literally as “lump” (nice, huh?) and is a colloquial word for dumpling; gnocchi can be made out of semolina, cornmeal, spinach, even bread crumbs. One of my favorites: ricotta gnocchi, which is just as authentic as its potato relative, but lighter in texture and much easier to make.