Spinach Gnocchi with Three-Cheese Sauce

From The Bad For You Cookbook

This is a variation on a dish we first encountered during a press junket to Geneva--one of those miserable jobs that somebody has to do. Actually, most people don't realize just how much work it is to be escorted around glamorous foreign cities while not spending any money. Earlier in the Day Of The Gnocchi, we had been taken to a trade center and shown a filmstrip on the machine-tool industry, and then escorted through a string of historic buildings by a tour guide who had been vaccinated with a phonograph needle. Finally, we got to see the famous monument to the heroes of the Reformation. After staring at a statue of John Calvin--and having it stare back--you need a dish like gnocchi with three-cheese sauce to put you back in the proper voluptuary's perspective on life.

  2 pounds  potatoes, peeled and quartered
     12 oz  fresh spinach
         2  egg yolks
    3 Tbsp  Parmesan
            salt
   1/3 cup  flour

• Boil the potatoes until soft, drain, then mash or rice through a colander. Wash spinach and put in saucepan without drying. Cover and bring to a boil; cook a few minutes until completely wilted. Drain very well [note: they mean VERY WELL! -Ed], pressing as much water out as possible. Chop finely. Add to bowl with other ingredients and mix well, then knead briefly on floured board. With hands, roll into a long rope the thickness of a finger. Cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces. (If you want to be fancy, you can run the dough through a gnocchi machine). Bring a large amount of cold water to a boil and add gnocchi, about 12 at a time. Skim from pot when they rise to the surface. Repeat until all are cooked. Toss with warm Three-Cheese Sauce, below.

Three-Cheese Sauce

   1/2 cup  butter
   2/3 cup  grated Parmesan
1 1/2 cups  heavy cream
 1/4 pound  Gorgonzola
      3 oz  Mascarpone

• Melt butter in a large skillet, then stir in Parmesan and cook over low heat until cheese is melted. Add 1 cup of the cream and simmer, stirring, until well blended. Add Gorgonzola and Mascarpone and stir until melted. Blend in additional cream to reach desired consistency, and bring to simmer. Makes enough to sauce about 1½ pounds pasta, preferably spinach gnocchi.