Ricotta Gnocchi, Camp Version
Powdered ricotta, powdered egg, flour. Rolled and boiled on a tailgate.
- calories
- 620
- weight
- 5.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 113
- protein
- 26 g
- serves
- 2, scales
- prep
- 25 min
- cook
- 10 min
- total time
- 35 min
- water
- 1500 ml boiled
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Canister stove
- Liquid fuel
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Vegetarian
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Powdered whole milk ricotta | 1 cup | rehydrates to roughly a 15 oz tub |
|---|---|---|
| Powdered whole egg | 3 tbsp | stands in for 1 egg |
| Whole wheat flour | 1 to 1 1/2 cups | carry the extra half cup for the surface |
| Finely grated parmesan | 3/4 cup | the shelf-stable shaker kind is fine here |
| Salt | 1 tsp | |
| Olive oil | 2 tbsp | |
| Tomato powder or dried marinara mix | 1/3 cup | optional sauce |
Method
- Stir the ricotta powder with 3/4 cup water in your pot until it is thick and lump-free. Let it sit five minutes. It should be paste, not batter. If it is loose, add powder, not flour.
- Add the egg powder with 3 tbsp water, then the parmesan and salt. Mix.
- Work in 1 cup of flour a few spoonfuls at a time, until the dough lifts out in one ball. Sticky is fine. Dry is not.
- Flour a cutting board or a clean stuff sack. Roll the dough into thumb-thick ropes and cut them into pieces about as long as they are wide. Flour the knife when it drags.
- Boil 1.5 L of water with a good pinch of salt. Drop the gnocchi in a third at a time. They are done about a minute after they float, roughly three minutes each batch.
- Scoop them out, drain, and toss with the oil so they do not weld together. Stir the tomato powder into a little of the hot cooking water and pour it over.
Ricotta gnocchi is potato gnocchi without the potatoes, the boiling, or the ricing, which is what makes it worth doing away from a kitchen. The whole dish is cheese, egg, and flour, and two of those three ship as powder. Rehydrated ricotta powder is drier than the tub kind, which is the direction you want anyway — wet ricotta is the usual reason gnocchi dissolve in the pot.
The original recipe is a bulk freezer batch with four eggs and a 32 oz tub. This is cut down to two dinners so you are not rolling dough by headlamp for an hour. Add flour slowly and stop early. Every extra spoonful buys insurance against a pot of grey mush and costs you texture, and past a point you are eating boiled paste.
Packing
Ricotta powder, egg powder, parmesan, and salt go in one bag together. Flour rides in its own bag with the extra half cup for dusting. Oil in a leakproof bottle.
Variations
- Make the dough at home, cut it, freeze it hard, and cook it out of the cooler on night one.
- White flour works and needs slightly less of it. Whole wheat drinks more water.
- Skip the sauce and brown the boiled gnocchi in the oil with more parmesan.
https://www.bowlofdelicious.com/whole-wheat-ricotta-gnocchi