Buckwheat Gnocchi

In yesterday’s post I may have tempered the media’s enthusiasm for the gluten-free dining experience in Italy, but that country remains a rich source of inspiration for delicious gluten-free cuisine. For example, in the cooler, alpine valleys of northern Italy’s Alps, buckwheat often plays a starring role in the agriculture and cuisine. Different valleys each have their own special dish—from buckwheat polenta to buckwheat gnocchi to a buckwheat pasta dish known as pizzoccheri—but gluten-free buckwheat is the common thread that ties them all together.

Buckwheat flour is usually mixed in various ratios with one of several kinds of wheat flour, so the dishes aren’t naturally gluten-free. But they’re easily modified to make them so. Take this recipe for buckwheat gnocchi, for example. Normally it’d have buckwheat and wheat flours, but instead we use buckwheat flour and our Artisan Gluten-Free Flour Blend as a great all-purpose substitution for the wheat. The result is an easy-to-make gnocchi that honors a regionally popular dish from northern Italy yet makes it wonderfully gluten-free.