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Semolina gnocchi alla romana

Rounds of baked semolina, crisp on top and soft underneath

Medium20 min hands-on · 1 hr totalServes 2
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A dish of overlapping golden semolina rounds baked with butter and Parmesan.

plus at least 30 minutes chilling, or make the base a day ahead

Doubles in a larger dish. The semolina base freezes well before baking, wrapped flat.

Despite the name, this gnocchi never sees a pan of boiling water. It starts as a thick semolina porridge, cooked in milk until a spoon can stand up in it, and finishes as discs, cut and layered like small tiles, baked under butter and cheese until the tops turn gold and the undersides stay soft. It is a two-stage dish: the work is done well ahead, when the semolina is spread out to firm up in the fridge, so the only thing left for dinner itself is cutting rounds and sliding a dish into the oven. Once you have made it once, it becomes the recipe you reach for when you want something that looks like effort but mostly happened yesterday.

Suits after surgery, a narrowed bowel, chemotherapy diarrhoea, a new stoma, after a low anterior resection

Tags Vegetarian · Make ahead · Easily fortified

Ingredients

Contains: Gluten, Egg, Milk

  • 500 mlwhole milk
  • 50 gunsalted butter, 20 g for the semolina, 30 g for the dish
  • salt
  • 100 gfine semolina
  • 2egg yolks
  • 60 gParmesan, finely grated, 40 g for the mixture, 20 g to finish

Method

  1. Warm the milk with 20 g of the butter and a good pinch of salt in a wide pan over a medium heat, until small bubbles appear at the edge.

  2. Rain in the semolina in a thin, steady stream, whisking constantly to stop lumps forming. Turn the heat down low and cook, stirring, for 6 to 8 minutes, until it is very thick and pulls away from the side of the pan.

  3. Take the pan off the heat and beat in the egg yolks and 40 g of the Parmesan, one after the other, until smooth and glossy.

  4. Tip onto a lined baking tray and spread with a wet spatula to an even 1.5 cm thickness, roughly a 20 cm square. Leave to cool, then cover and chill for at least 30 minutes, until it is firm enough to cut cleanly. It keeps in the fridge like this for a day.

  5. Heat the oven to 200°C fan (220°C) and butter a baking dish of about 20 cm with a little of the remaining butter. Cut the semolina into rounds with a 5 cm cutter or a glass dipped in water.

    Press the offcuts together into a rough patty and tuck it under the rounds in the dish. It bakes into the same thing and nobody sees it.

  6. Arrange the rounds in the dish, overlapping like roof tiles. Dot with the last of the butter and scatter with the remaining 20 g of Parmesan.

  7. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until golden and bubbling on top and soft all the way through when you press a round with a spoon.

Watch-points

  • Whisk the semolina in slowly and keep whisking while it thickens, so no lumps survive into the finished dish.
  • Chill the semolina flat and fully firm before cutting, or the rounds will not hold their shape.
  • Use fine semolina rather than a coarse or bran-heavy version, so the texture stays smooth rather than gritty.

Make it more nourishing

  • Use 70 g of Parmesan in total rather than 60, and add an extra knob of butter to the dish before baking.
  • Beat 20 ml of double cream into the semolina mixture along with the egg yolks for a richer set.
  • Melt another 10 g of butter over each portion at the table.

Swaps

Instead of Parmesan, use Gruyère or mature Cheddar
melts to a deeper gold on top and is easy to keep in the fridge
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