Roman or not Roman?

I always wondered how all the fresh pasta stores in Piedmont sold baked pillows of semolina flour cooked with milk, butter, egg yolks, and cheese which are called Gnocchi alla Romana.  Italians are known to be very insular in their cooking and that they consider dishes from even few miles away as foreign.  So how is it that all these shops in the most provincial towns in Piedmont display this dish in their windows every day? How is it that even my mother made them and that it was one of the dishes most favored by my father, a man definitely not know for having an adventurous palate?  The mystery got solved during my research on this dish.  It looks like the people of Rome don’t recognize this dish as their own.  For them, as for most Italians, gnocchi are made with potatoes and they believe that Gnocchi alla Romana actually originated in Piedmont.  Now the mystery of their popularity in Piedmont is solved for me.  My guess is that they are called “alla Romana” because they are made with semolina flour, just like pasta for which Romans are know of - think of Spaghetti Cacio e Pepe e Spaghetti all’Amatriciana, for example - and not made with potatoes like the gnocchi that are a staple of traditional Alpine cuisine.    

Gnocchi alla Romana are generally round.  However, when you cut disks of pasta you also get with a lot of waste.  Thus I decided to make them squared. If you rather shape them round, you can add some lemon zest and sugar to the leftover trimmings and fry them in a pan with some hot oil. You will get a simple, tasty treat!    

 

Gnocchi alla Romana – makes 6 servings

Ingredients

4 cups of milk

1 ½ cup of semolina flour

3 egg yolks, beaten

1 ½ cup of grated parmigiano cheese

1/3 nutmeg, grated

½ tbs salt

6 Tbs butter

1. Bring 4 cups of milk to a boil.
2. Slowly whisk in the semolina flour and cook it at low heat for 5-8 minutes.  Remove it from the stove.
3. Fast incorporate the egg yolks so that they don’t scramble.  Then add 1 cup of the grated parmigiano cheese, the nutmeg, salt, and 4 tablespoons of butter.
4. Pour the semolina mixture in a baking sheet and flatten it out.  Let it cool for at least 45 minutes.
5. When the semolina mixture is cool, cut it into 2 inch squares. Butter a 9x13 baking dish and lay the squares slightly juxtaposing one layer over the other.  Then sprinkle the gnocchi with the remaining parmigiano cheese and dot them with the remaining butter.
6. Bake the gnocchi for about 15 minutes at 450F degrees or until golden.
7. Remove them from the oven and let them rest for 5 minutes.  Serve hot.

 

BUON APPETITO!