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Merda de can (Niçois Swiss chard gnocchi)

La merda de can

Merda de can are Nice's green gnocchi: potato dough with chopped Swiss chard, shaped by hand and served with sage butter, tomato or daube sauce.

Published

Prep
45 min
Cook
45 min
Total
1 h 30 min
Serves
4
Difficulty
Medium

Method

  1. Prick the unpeeled potatoes with a fork and boil them in salted water for 35 to 40 minutes, depending on size, until a knife slides in easily.

  2. Wash the chard leaves and shake off the water. Wilt them in a pot with the olive oil and no added water, stirring with a fork speared with the garlic clove, for 3 to 4 minutes.

  3. Tip the chard into a colander and squeeze it hard in your hands until no water comes out. Chop it very finely.

  4. Drain the potatoes and peel them while hot. If they feel damp, dry them for a few minutes in a hot oven. Push them straight through a ricer or a fine sieve onto the work surface. Do not use a blender.

  5. Add the chard, the egg, a pinch of nutmeg, salt and pepper. Work in the flour a little at a time on a floured board until the dough is soft and no longer sticks to your fingers. Stop kneading as soon as it comes together.

  6. Roll the dough between your palms into ropes about 1 cm thick, flouring the board as you go. Cut the ropes into pieces of about 2 cm and roll each one between your palms into a rough, uneven shape. Skip the fork.

  7. Bring a large pot of water to the boil and salt it at the last moment. Drop in the gnocchi in batches, stirring so they do not stick. When they float to the surface, give them another 1 to 2 minutes and lift them out with a slotted spoon, leaving a little cooking water.

  8. Melt the butter with the sage leaves in a warm, wide dish. Add the gnocchi, toss to coat, and finish with the Parmesan. Serve straight away.

Tips

  • Use old, floury potatoes, never new ones. Damp weather can make the dough sticky, so add the flour gradually and stop when the dough lets go of your fingers.
  • Squeeze the chard until it is dry. Wet chard makes a sticky dough.
  • Do not overwork the dough: it turns elastic and the gnocchi get heavy.
  • Cook in several batches and lift the gnocchi 1 to 2 minutes after they float. Left longer, they turn tough.

Watch it being made

gnocchi verts merda di can — cuisine nicoise (YouTube). The player loads only when you press play.

Merda de can, Nice’s green gnocchi

Merda de can are potato gnocchi coloured green with chopped Swiss chard. The name is also written merda dé can or merda di can, and in Niçois (nissart) it means, literally, “dog droppings”. The name is usually tied to the irregular shape: the gnocchi are cut, then shaped by hand, with no fork ridges. The name makes people smile, 20 Minutes reports, and the taste wins them over. The dish is part of the wider repertoire of Niçois cooking.

Franck Viano, head of the Cuisine Niçoise collective, told 20 Minutes in 2022 that gnocchi are first mentioned in the 15th century and that merda de can are said to be over five centuries old. He adds that the recipe is passed down in families and shows up mostly at festive meals. In 2022 the manager of L’Escalinada, a restaurant in Vieux-Nice, noted that few restaurants list them.

How cooks in Nice make merda de can

The base is always potato, chard and flour. The sources differ on how the chard is cooked and what goes into the dough.

Version Chard Dough Served with
L’Escalinada, Nice (20 Minutes, 2022) Chopped Flour, potato purée, egg, olive oil, ropes of 1 cm shaped by hand Pistou, tomato and basil, gorgonzola, daube, truffle, or olive oil and Parmesan
Cuisine Niçoise, home recipe Wilted dry with a garlic-spiked fork, squeezed, chopped Potato, small egg, flour Butter, sage, Parmesan, optional truffle
Julien Cadeau (2023) Blanched 2 minutes, iced Potato, yolk, Parmesan, flour and semolina Lemon cream sauce, with Menton lemon
Pardon Your French (2019) Sautéed 3 to 4 minutes in butter Potato, yolk, nutmeg, flour Butter and Parmesan

The Cuisine Niçoise recipe uses 2 bunches of chard greens for 6 potatoes. Cadeau uses 1 bunch for 500 g of potatoes. Our recipe sits between them, with about 300 g of leaves for 800 g of potatoes.

Potatoes and chard

Laurence Duperthuy, who teaches Niçois cooking in La Colle-sur-Loup, is firm about gnocchi: use old, starchy potatoes (she names Bintje from Manosque and Mona Lisa) and never new ones. The Cuisine Niçoise recipe also asks for a floury variety from Manosque. Peel the potatoes while they are hot and mash them finely with a ricer or sieve. Duperthuy rules out a vegetable mill, while the Cuisine Niçoise site accepts one but not a blender.

Use the green part of the chard only. Keep the ribs for grilled chard stems with anchovy vinaigrette. Squeezing out the water is the key step, since every source dries the chard before it meets the dough.

Shaping and cooking at home

Roll the dough into ropes about 1 cm thick and cut small pieces. Unlike Duperthuy’s plain Niçois gnocchi, which are rolled on a fork, merda de can are left smooth and a little crooked. Use plenty of boiling water and cook in batches. At L’Escalinada, 20 Minutes reports 1 minute 30 after the gnocchi resurface. Pardon Your French warns that gnocchi left too long become tough.

Serving merda de can

The simplest finish, from the Cuisine Niçoise site and its video, is melted butter with sage and Parmesan, or a tomato sauce called saussoun in Niçois. Duperthuy lists pistou, the juice of a roast of veal, and the sauce of a daube as other pairings for Niçois gnocchi, and Maison Tosello suggests a small daube sauce. That is the same sauce the ravioli niçois are served with, so a good daube niçoise can feed both dishes.

Questions & answers

Are merda de can the same as Niçois gnocchi?

No. Plain Niçois gnocchi are potato, flour and egg, and cooks such as Laurence Duperthuy roll them on a fork. Merda de can add chopped chard to the dough and are shaped by hand into irregular pieces.

Can I freeze merda de can?

Yes. The Cuisine Niçoise recipe says the dough can be frozen once it has been rolled into ropes.

Do merda de can need cheese in the dough?

Not in the Niçois home recipe, which adds Parmesan only at the end. Julien Cadeau puts 15 g of Parmesan in the dough for 500 g of potatoes.

Sources

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