Gnocchi with zucchini flowers pesto, mussels and pecorino cheese 🤩

Potato gnocchi are a typical Italian cuisine. Round-shaped morsels, small smooth dumplings or larger striped ones. Composed of a mixture of boiled potatoes and flour. They go well with any condiment, whether it is fish, meat or vegetables. Soft and tasty, in this recipe we prepare gnocchi with mussels and zucchini flowers, a simple, tasty and inexpensive recipe. We need a few simple ingredients, potatoes, flour, mussels and zucchini flowers.

After a very intense and tiring week here I am back to take care of my little virtual refuge, today the sun is shining and it seems that the next days are beautiful, that spring is finally arriving? I have to say that I'm not ready, in the sense that I haven't even thought about it, to date the days of full sun, heat, possibility to be outdoors have been very few, socks, jacket, blanket have always been present, as well as hot dishes, clouds, sudden storms. As always I will be surprised, overwhelmed by the change, the first days I will feel then I will adapt to the heat which for me is not always synonymous with well-being, serenity and beauty! Having said that, let's still enjoy a hot dish, the potato gnocchi, perfect because they are made easily with a knife, the pesto that I love and that you have already seen many times and the zucchini flowers, versatile vegetables, baked, stuffed, steamed, just sautéed in a sauce and obviously fried! Have a great week!

Ingredients

1 kg potatoes or dumplings

300 g flour

1 kg of mussels

250 g zucchini flowers

10 basil leaves

extra virgin olive oil

Salt to taste

pecorino cheese to taste

Preparation

Preparation of the gnocchi

In a saucepan, boil the potatoes with their skin on and covered with cold water for about 30 minutes, depending on their size. Check for doneness with a fork. Once cooked, peel them and crush them while still hot on the flour that you have poured on the pastry board. Add a pinch of salt and knead with your hands until you get a soft but compact dough.

Dumplings

Take a part of the dough and roll it out with your fingertips to obtain  loaves, 1cm thick and cut them to 1 cm; To do this, help yourself by flouring the pastry board, from time to time, with flour. In the meantime, cover the remaining dough with a tea towel to prevent it from drying out. Place them on a floured tray.

Preparation of the mussels

In a bowl, wash the mussels in cold water, grate them with an iron scourer to remove impurities. Remove the wire by pulling it down.

Open the mussels in a frying pan and sauté a clove of garlic with oil (cover with a lid). As soon as the mussels are open, shell them, keeping 8 aside, we will make them in half shell. Filter the liquid and add it to the shelled mussels.

Preparation of basil oil

Leaf the basil and blanch it for 6 seconds in boiling water. Let's cool it in cold water and ice. Squeeze the basil and put it covered with oil in a narrow and tall container and blend it with an immersion blender.

Cooking and composition of the dish

Bring salted water to a boil in a pot to cook the gnocchi. In the meantime, clean and wash the zucchini flowers. In a frying pan, put the mussels with some of their liquid. Once the water comes to a boil, cook the gnocchi. When they rise to the surface with the help of a slotted spoon, put the gnocchi in the pan with the mussels and turn on the heat over high heat, add the zucchini flowers broken by hand and sauté the gnocchi to mix them with the mussels (if necessary add the rest of the mussel liquid). Stir in some raw oil.

Plating

Plate the gnocchi, add 2 mussels to half shells per plate and with the help of the tip of the spoon put a drizzle of basil oil and pecorino cheese.