A light and appetizing first course, potato gnocchi with lemon verbena cream. A simple dish, egg-free with an aromatic herb sauce.
These are classic gnocchi, made only of potatoes, flour and salt, without eggs — vegan little gnocchi.
What can we dress these light potato gnocchi with?
I wanted to prepare a cream of lemon verbena, also called cedrina, “limoncina”, verbena odorosa, whose scientific name is Lippia citriodora — do you know it?
If you don’t use it, I’ll introduce it to you! It’s a very fragrant perennial herb that will delight you every year with many little flowers you can use to decorate your dishes. Here’s my plant:
The cedrina or lemon verbena or verbena odorosa is one of the best-known plants in herbalism: for example used for digestive teas, to make a wonderful liqueur — here it is here. I also use it to make gomasio, to flavor oil, I put it in sweets, in ravioli, in fruit salad, I even make digestive sugared bites to give at Christmas. Now it’s time for the cream for these very delicate potato gnocchi with lemon verbena.
Regarding properties, cedrina can be credited with stimulating the appetite, aiding digestion, eliminating intestinal gas and exerting a mild antispasmodic and general sedative action.
So here are the potato gnocchi with lemon verbena cream and below the recipes with this aromatic herb that makes everything special.
- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Very inexpensive
- Preparation time: 45 Minutes
- Cooking time: 5 Minutes
- Portions: 4 servings
- Cooking methods: Boiling
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Spring, Summer and Autumn
Ingredients for potato gnocchi with lemon verbena cream
- 20 leaves lemon verbena (cedrina)
- 1/4 cup pine nuts
- 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 3 tbsp ice water (iced)
- 1/2 cup Parmesan (optional)
- 1 1/3 lb potatoes (Rotzo variety)
- 1 1/2 cups Type 0 flour (organic)
- to taste salt
Preparation of lemon verbena cream
In the jug of an immersion blender put the pine nuts and pulse finely, add the lemon verbena leaves, a few tablespoons of water and the oil in a thin stream until a smooth cream forms. If preferred, instead of water you can add plant-based milk. Set aside and move on to the gnocchi.
Wash the potatoes and cook them whole with the skin on in cold water. Choose potatoes of the same size so they cook evenly. After about 30-40 minutes (depending on size) they will be ready. You can also use a pressure cooker to halve the time.
As soon as they are ready drain and remove the skins. Pass them through a potato ricer or mash them directly onto the work surface.Spread the mashed potatoes with a bench scraper to release all the residual steam.
At this point add the salt and the flour little by little and start to mix. It’s best to knead as little as possible otherwise the gnocchi will become tough. The flour should be about 25% – 30% of the potato weight, but as mentioned above it can depend on many factors.
The less flour the potatoes require the better, the gnocchi will be softer.
Once you have formed a dough, cut off pieces and roll them into logs with your hands, rolling them on the work surface until they reach a thickness of about 5/8 inch, then cut them into gnocchi of about 3/4 inch.Roll each gnocco over the tines of a fork applying some pressure and sliding it from bottom to top, or use a gnocchi board, so they take on the characteristic ridges and form the hollow that will hold the lemon verbena cream.
Don’t flour them too much otherwise they will become sticky; if necessary use rice flour which dissolves completely in water.
Cook them immediately in salted boiling water a few at a time; as soon as they rise to the surface they are ready to be dressed with the delicate lemon verbena cream.
For the Herbs and Flowers on the Plate column this month my friends and I talked precisely about cedrina, go and see the beautiful recipes of:
Elisa: Melopita, Greek ricotta and honey cake
Miria: Fig jam with lemon verbena
Tiziana: Lemon verbena and lime ice cream
Tips
It’s best to prepare the right amount of gnocchi and eat them immediately. You can, of course, freeze your raw gnocchi and also the lemon verbena cream. When ready to serve, drop the frozen gnocchi into salted boiling water, and meanwhile defrost the lemon verbena cream in the microwave.
Toss the drained gnocchi gently with the sauce and serve immediately.
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