While I feel like I begin every post with “this has to be one of my FAVOURITE foods…” I’m actually being genuine with this one. Gnocchi combines all the best aspects of life: potato and pasta. What more could you want from your lunch/dinner/every meal for the rest of forever?
Luckily, making this amazing dish proved to be quite easy and I wish I had tried it sooner.
This recipe will serve about 6 people, but next time I’ll probably make it in bulk and freeze the excess to cook at a later date.
Firstly, choose your potatoes carefully! I used the King Edward variety and they turned out really well so I’d go with them.
Place the potatoes in a large pot, fill with water and place on a high heat. Pop in 2 large pinches of salt and leave to boil until the potatoes are tender and you can easily slip a skewer through them. It’s important not to boil the water first as the potato skins may split and become unmanageable if you put them into boiling water.
Strain the potatoes then place in a tea towel (as they’ll be very hot), and use a small knife to take off all the skin. It’s a little bit tricky doing this so find the method that works best for you, whether it be a tea towel, gloves etc.
For the next part you’ll need a Passatutto, Italian for ‘an amazing device that mashes your potatoes to perfection’. naturally. These can be picked up at kitchen supply stores and the like, but you can just as easily just use a normal potato masher. This machine just ensures the potatoes will turn out to be really fluffy gnocchi.
To your mashy potato goodness, add 2 generous pinches of salt and a pinch of pepper. Under-seasoned gnocchi will be bland and awful, so don’t be shy with your seasonings.
The next part involves basically making your beautifully cooked potatoes into a dough. Add 1 beaten egg and stir through quickly before it cooks in the warm potato. Also add about 300 grams of 00 flour. The exact amount of flour needed will need to be judged all’occhio (by eye), but once you get your hands into the dough you’ll be able to judge if more is needed depending on how sticky/pliable it is.
Mix and knead the potato with your hands to form a dough. It takes a while to get all the flour mixed in and even throughout the potato but keep at it until it is a tight dough.
Charlie getting in amongst the action…
So next is the fun / extremely difficult part, depending on how you look at it: rolling out your dough to form tiny little gnocchi balls. I say fun because it’s essentially play dough for adults, but difficult because it is quite challenging to get all the gnocchi the same size. I tackled this by breaking the main dough up into about 5 smaller balls.
Use a large wooden board sprinkled with lots of 00 flour to roll out your dough. It’s a real process in itself to ensure each part of the long strand of dough is even, but it comes with practise and I eventually got the hang of it.
When you’re happy with the size/depth of the gnocchi, use a knife to cut the gnocchi into small bite size pieces. While there isn’t necessarily a size you have to stick to, the little cube shape is traditional. In saying that, I’ve been to restaurants where their homemade gnocchi is a similar shape and size to penne pasta. It’s really up to you.
Once you’ve cut the gnocchi, cover it in more flour and place on a large tray lined with baking paper and voila! The hard part is over!
I’d recommend cooking the gnocchi immediately or freezing them for whenever you’d like to eat them. When I made this batch, I covered them and left them to sit for about 6 hours until dinner time and they were a little soft so I had to quickly pop them in the freezer with more flour before cooking.
When it comes to cooking these bad boys, life really couldn’t deal you a sweeter hand. Add the gnocchi to salted boiling water and after a few minutes they’ll be cooked. Knowing when they’re ready is the simplest thing about them; they simply float to the top of your boiled water, primed to be strained and added to some sauce!
I served mine with a simple Napoli tomato sauce topped with basil, but I’ll definitely be trying out a goats cheese and spinach sauce and maybe even this recipe with sweet potato. Ah the possibilities are endless.
Love live the Gnocch.
xx
My Year in the Kitchen 