Spinach and Ricotta Dumplings with Shrimp in Cream Sauce

I first heard of Pinterest a handful of months ago, while reading through some of my favorite food blogs. I do understand some of the controversies of the site, especially its rampant issues with copyrights… I try to link directly to original sources, so the real owner or artist of what I’m pinning at least gets some credit… Personally, I’ve loved using the site as a way to visually organize recipes I’ve found while roaming the inter-nets. Plus its been a site of many new recipe discoveries.

The following recipe is one I saw while browsing food/beverage pins. I am a sucker for good food photos, which often draw me into wanting to cook what I’m seeing. Sometimes even the best photos, unfortunately, are duds in real-life flavor. That hasn’t stopped me from attempting things that look like they’d be tasty. The original recipe for the following dish sounded simple enough and the photos looked delicious.

While I should’ve realized prior to making this, that it would be very rich, I didn’t. After a few dumplings (which really are like gigantic gnocchi), shrimp, and the creamy sauce, I was ready for a food coma almost immediately. You can easily serve this as a main dish for 4 people, although I have to admit that Craig and I did pretty well polishing this off.

Spinach and Ricotta Dumplings with Shrimp in Cream Sauce

Ingredients:

2 tbsp. olive oil
6 oz. fresh baby spinach, chopped
8 cloves garlic, minced
1- 15 oz. container ricotta cheese
2 eggs
1 cup flour, plus ½ cup for rolling
1½ tsp. fresh ground pepper
1½ tsp. sea salt
1 tsp. dried oregano
4 tbsp. unsalted butter
2 cups crimini mushrooms, sliced
1½ cups heavy cream
18-20 fresh shrimp, peeled, deveined, tails removed
salt and pepper

Directions:

Prepare the dumplings: In a medium-large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Sauté half of the garlic (save the rest for when it’s time to cook the sauce) until fragrant (2-3 minutes). Add the spinach and cook until completely wilted. It’s important that you don’t add any water to the spinach; let the oil and heat be the only elements that wilt it (your dough will be too wet otherwise).

In a large bowl, mix together the ricotta cheese and eggs until completely combined. Stir in the spinach mixture, then the one cup of flour, 1½ teaspoon of salt and pepper, and 1 teaspoon of oregano.  Mix until well combined.

Place the remaining half-cup of flour in a shallow dish or flat surface. Bring a large pot of water to boiling while you form the dumplings. Scoop the dough, a teaspoon at a time and drop lightly into the flour. Roll in your hands to form a oval dumpling, then shake off the excess flour.

Cook the dumplings in batches, dropping them gently into the boiling water. Give the pot a light stir to keep the dumplings from sticking to the bottom. Boil for 2-3 minutes, until the dumpling freely floats to the surface. Remove with a slotted spoon and place on a cooling rack until all the dumplings are boiled.

After all the dumplings are cooked, heat the 4 tablespoons of butter in a medium-large skillet (I just used the same one I cooked my spinach in) over medium. Add the dumplings and cook until golden brown, turning occasionally (2-3 minutes per side). Transfer the browned dumplings to a plate or cooling rack.

In the same pan you cooked the dumplings, add the shrimp. Cook for 1-2 minutes on each side. You don’t want them to overcook. Add the mushrooms to the pan, cooking until the mushrooms become tender. Once the mushrooms have cooked down, add in the heavy cream. Season with salt and pepper to your liking. Once the heavy cream begins to thicken up, turn off the heat.

Add the dumplings to the pan. Delicately fold into the cream sauce. Serve hot and enjoy!