How to Make A16 Gnocchi and Meatballs

This is not your typical pasta/gnocchi dish as the broth is quite liquidy, almost like a soup. However this turned into one of my girlfriends favorite dishes that I have made so far, so it must have been pretty good.

The meatballs are mainly made from pork shoulder, which was a surprise since I have only slow cooked pork shoulder for a few hours since you need to have it very tender. However, I guess if you grind it down it cooks like a typical meatball which made the prep easy since we had already made the gnocchi dough.

Ideally, make the dough beforehand. It’s so much less to do, worry about, or clean before dinner. If you have the gnocchi ready in the freezer, you can put this dish together within an hour. Plus the gnocchi are very light and fluffy, it is actually much easier to handle when coming straight from the freezer as opposed to the fresh dough.

One thing to note is in the actual recipe, they use a cheese brodo, which is an Italian cheese broth made from cheese rinds. I certainly don’t have a ton of these hanging around, so I used chicken stock instead, and feel free to use that or vegetable stock as a replacement.

Cookbook – A16

Recipe – Ricotta Gnocchi in Broth with peas and Spicy Meatballs

Ingredients –

Dough –

A16 – Ricotta Gnocchi Dough

Meatballs –

Boneless pork shoulder – 1 pound – finely chopped in a food processor or through a meat grinder
Fatback – 4oz – This is basically pure back fat, if you can find it great, if not, I substituted and a few strips of finely chopped bacon in a food processor with the pork shoulder. I would bet that pork belly would make a nice substitute as well.
Eggs – 2 – lightly beaten
Fresh bread crumbs – 1/2 cup
Calabrian Chiles – fresh ones are probably tough to find, however they have jarred ones at Whole Foods – If you do not want to use those, then 1/4-1/2 tsp of dried chile flakes for 2-3 Calabrian chiles will work
Salt

Sauce –

Salt
English peas – 1 cup
Peashoots – about 1 cup
A16 – Ricotta Gnocchi Dough
Chicken broth – 1 1/2 cups (So in the acutal recipe, they use an Italian cheese broth made from cheese rinds. I figured that you wouldn’t have these laying around so I went with this substitute)
Water – 1 cup
Calabrian Chile oil – to taste, it’s pretty hot. Or red pepper flakes

Tools –

Food processor or meat grinder
Baking sheet

Step 1 – Make the Gnocchi

Follow the recipe for A16 Ricotta Gnocchi Dough

Ideally, do this the day before. Gnocchi actually freezes great and can be used at anytime after that. As always with pasta doughs, it will almost always take longer than you think, so be prepared.

Step 2 – Make the Meatballs and Cook

Finely chop the meat in a food processor or meat grinder.

In a large bowl, combine the meat, eggs, bread crumbs, chiles, salt, and mix together with your hands until even distributed. Form each ball into about 1 ounce and place of a baking sheet.

Preheat over to 400F. Cook the meatballs for 18-20 minutes, or until lightly browned and cooked through. Remove and set aside.

Step 3 – Make the Sauce

Set aside an ice bath.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, add the peas, then after 30 seconds, add the shoots. Blanch for about 1 minute total, 30 seconds for the shoots. Drain, and then set in the ice bath.

Fill the pot with salted water and start to bring to a boil.

Meanwhile, in a large pot of pan, combine the broth and water over medium/high heat and add the meatballs, peas, and pea shoots.

When the gnocchi are ready, drain and add the gnocchi to the broth. Cook for about a minute for the flavors to meld together. The broth should still look wet and liquidy, this is not a reduced sauce, and is not meant to be dry.

Season to taste, and finish with chile oil and serve immediately!

And for the ratings –

Difficulty of ingredients to find – 3/5 stars – A normal trip to the store should be fine
Perceived difficulty going into recipe – 4/5 stars – seems like a good amount of components
Difficulty after recipe – 4/5 stars – there are multiple components of the dish and can mess then up in a few different areas
Time Taken – 5/5 stars – Over 4 hours total
Taste – 4.5/5 stars – Very good, my broth was a touch bland, but still worked very well. The meatballs are spicy.
Make again – 4/5 stars – at some point in time, we definitely will