Gnocchi di patate
Gnocchi di patate, or potato gnocchi, has long been a favourite of our family. It was one of those special event dishes pulled out at birthdays, Christmas, Easter and so on, which was just about one of the only times when you could justify the time needed to make the dish. Our family gatherings were big, so a dish like this took a good hour or two of solid work. But don’t be disheartened, for four people you can knock this up in twenty minutes or so (not including the time to make the sauce and boil the spuds!)
Then it was time to eat. We usually served them as first course, with a plain napoli or a ragu. But they are ideally suited to just butter and parmesan, or burnt butter and sage. And a big sprinkling of parmesan at the end always made them taste superb. The gnoccho themselves should be firm yet cloudlike, which is not that easy to achieve (I’m sure you’ve all consumed the bullets that are regularly served in restaurants around town). A lightness and deftness of hand is the key, as well as being confidant in the recipe. Don’t be put off - once you’ve knocked it over a few times, you’ll be a dab hand.
Making gnocchi always brings back such fond memories - especially when I bring out the big old wooden board, aluminum potato ricer, heavy white cotton tablecloth and the wicker baskets my Nonna brought with her when she immigrated from Italy. This is a tradition we keep to this day, and which I will continue to keep with my own family in future.
The recipe is quite simple, although one should only use it as a guide. Sometimes the potato can take more or less flour, but I will explain that further on.
Gnocchi di patate (for four servings)
1kg potatoes (floury ones, in this case, Otway Reds)
1 cup plain four
1 egg
1 tablespoon sea salt
Cook the potatoes. Now there are many schools of thought on this, mainly because you want to keep the potatoes from becoming too waterlogged. Therefore you can steam or roast them. I understand the theory, but I just actually boil them by placing them whole, skin on, into a cold pot of water. Bring up to the boil, and when you can pierce them easily with a skewer (with some resistance), they are done.
While still hot, peel the skin (wear gloves, or use a tea towel to assist if you don’t have asbestos hands), and use the potato ricer or a mouli to mash, ensuring there are no lumps or bumps or black eyes. If using a standard masher, then this is more important (lumps have a way of hiding), which will end up mucking up your gnocchi. And don’t food process the potatoes either - this will turn them into heavy mush.
Sprinkle the mash generously with the sea salt (yes, the whole tablespoon).
While the potatoes are still warm but cool enough to handle, make a well in the centre and crack in the egg (nb. I am making double the recipe, hence the two eggs).
Sprinkle a little of the flour over the potatoes and eggs, and then using a pinching motion, bring the eggs, flour and potato together.
Keep adding more flour, bringing the sides up and in. You want to work quickly here - not being too forceful with the dough (you want to maintain the lightness of the mash). Keep adding flour while the dough is still sticky, as depending on the moisture in the potatoes, you may need to add less or more than the 1 cup. Once the dough is no longer sticky and is pliable/rollable, you are done.
This is the finished dough. If you press your finger into the side, the dent should remain depressed. If it jumps back up, you may have used too much flour or worked the dough too much. Say four Hail Mary’s and one Our Father and pray that you haven’t made a pot full of bullets.
Dust the board with a bit of flour, and then cut a chunk from the dough.
Roll the dough into a long sausage, about the diameter of a thumb.
Using a knife, cut thimblesize sections of dough.
Generously flour the sections of dough (to stop them from sticking)
Now comes the fun (and time consuming) bit - shaping the lil’ suckers. There are all manner of methods out there (you can read some of them here), but in my family we use a wicker basket.
Generally, I use TWO fingers (not one finger) to gently push and roll the gnoccho into the wicker, making a pattern on one side, and a nice little indent on the other in which to hold the sauce. This is not an easy technique - it took me many years of harassment encouragement by my Italian Nonna. Alternatively you an use this technique on the tines of a fork.
Lay the shaped gnocchi on a well floured tablecloth, ensuring they don’t touch/stick. If you are not going to cook them straight away, cover with a tablecloth to avoid them drying out. They also freeze rather well - just place on a tray in the freezer (not touching), and then when frozen, they can be put into plastic bags for easier storage.
To cook, move the gnoccho onto plates and then drop into a big pot of rapidly boiling salted water (the bigger the pot the better). They will instantly sink, and after a couple of minutes, rise to the surface. They should be done by this stage, but always test to make sure.
Drain and serve immediately with the sauce of your choice - the simpler the better.
Written by mellie on
January 6th, 2008 | Tags: recipes | Category: Uncategorized
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January 6th, 2008 at 7:36 am
Absolutely stunning. You’re right about the sauce, I sometimes serve them just with sage butter, a couple of fresh sage leaves fried in butter and poured over the boiled gnocchi.
January 6th, 2008 at 8:27 am
Ah, gnocchi - the basis of many of my favourite dishes. So yummy. Wish I was game to give this a go!
January 6th, 2008 at 9:08 am
Hey kitchen hand - ahh, I echo your sentiment. Burnt butter and sage is a magic combination. We never served it this way when my grandparents were around though, sticking to the napoli/ragu/butter & parmesan versions.
Hi anna - seriously, it’s easy as! Give it a go! If you want to try them on yourself before trying them on others, make the full batch. You can always freeze the extra three serves.
January 6th, 2008 at 9:45 am
Mellllllie! You pipped me at the post - this afternoon I too decided to write a blog entry about Nonna’s gnocchi di patate…
But your entry is so lovely to look at and read that I’m just going to refer to yours for the recipe.
Great post, well done!
January 6th, 2008 at 10:24 am
Oh Claire (aka. mutemonkey)! I’m so sorry! But you know what they say, great minds think alike
Absolutely loved your entry, especially as you had your Nonna in it. And how fantastic to be eating greens from you Nonno’s garden. Ahh…how good are grandparents?!?
January 6th, 2008 at 11:37 am
hi mellie
thanks heaps for posting up your recipe - we just tried it for dinner (w napoli sauce and parmesan). we don’t regularly make gnocchi, so the pics were really helpful. i’m happy to report: no bullets for us
we’d been talking about making gnocchi this weekend, and was hoping to find a good recipe from one of the melb food blogs. was so happy to see both you and claire/mutemonkey had posted about gnocchi today!
maybe it’s the recent hot weather that’s inducing collective gnocchi thoughts?
many thanks again!
jfox
January 6th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
luckily Catherine was on hand to shape those gnocchi, Mellie. I was no good at all. I guess there was a good reason why I failed high school Arts, where all my pottery would end up looking like lumps of pterodactyl dropping.
January 7th, 2008 at 6:00 am
Yum, have to get my mum to make me some next time she comes over to do the ironing (I really love my mum!). You know, she had been making gnocchi for about 40 years before she realised you didn’t need to peel them before you squoosh them in the ricer, as the skin doesn’t go through the holes (honest) so no more burnt fingers from spud peeling.
January 7th, 2008 at 10:58 am
Mellie, this isn’t related to the beautiful gnocchi but I was wondering if your RSS feed is working properly.
I haven’t dropped by your blog for ages because I thought you were still in Japan and no new posts showed up in my Google Reader. It was only when ElegantGourmand left a comment on my blog that I came to your blog and saw all these Japan articles that I had missed. The last RSS feed I had was from September about Espressino.
Now I have heaps of reading to catch up on.
January 7th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
I love this post! I actually got to learn how the fresh gnocchi are actually made! Thank you Mellie!
Now I’m actually craving for a plate of it!
January 7th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Hi there jfox - so glad the recipe worked out well, and that you successfully made light fluffy gnocchi. Bravo! Yes, the Melbourne food blogger collective was certainly in sync
Hey EG - don’t despair, it took me a good couple of years to learn the skill! Practice and patience is the key. You’ll get there yet
Hi anon - ahh you lazy bugger, you should try and make them yourself. Might be a nice way to show your Mum how much you really love her (instead of giving her more ironing ;-)). But you are right, you don’t need to peel the spuds, although if making a big batch, I find that it is sometimes easier than having to constantly pull the skins out of the ricer.
Heya thanh7580 - ahh, nice to see you back reading again
The RSS is working fine - I just checked. Make sure you have the address pointed to http://www.tummyrumbles.com, instead of the old melbpc address I had (that is no longer working). Hope you enjoy the Japan posts - I have about a gazillion others to go!
Hey hungry hamster - thanks for your comments! Gnocchi is something I have grown up with and are very familiar with, but then I figured a lot of people wouldn’t know how simple they are to actually make. And bad gnocchi are notorious in restaurants, which really give them a bad name. They should be light and fluffy, not leaden and constipation-inducing
January 7th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
Hi, love your gnocchi post- very impressed that you could make such light, fluffy looking non-bullet gnocchi with egg. I have always made it with just flour and potato, and bung it all together in a bowl, with out much care taken for the mixing as in your recipe. It gives a good cooked texture, but doesn’t keep as well and is a bit of a nightmare to handle- as you either have to constantly cover it in oil or flour after/before cooking. I will definitely be giving your recipe a go next time I feel like gnocchi- I think a little extra effort would be worth it for a more sturdy (but not bullet-like!) gnoccho.
January 7th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
Your right Mellie, I do sound like a lazy so and so but my mum doesn’t like eating gnocchi although she has been making them for us lot for about 50 years (one of the many sacrifices of motherhood….). Red wine, pizza and pavlova (or home made icecream) are her meal of choice after a hard days ironing at my place;-) Mum also makes this other recipe with gnocchi dough where she flattens it into a disc shape, places a generous tablespoon of thick plum jam in the middle and then closes the dough around it. You cook them the same way as normal gnocchi (and hope they don’t explode in the pot) and serve with breadcrumbs that have been fried to a deep golden colour in butter. We call them ‘Gnocchi di marmalata’, but I thing the dish has it’s origins in Austria.
Non-ironing anon.
January 8th, 2008 at 12:04 am
Excellent tutorial!
Btw, did I miss an announcement somewhere…’This is a tradition we keep to this day, and which I will continue to keep with my own family in future.”…another pair of helping hands on the way?
January 8th, 2008 at 3:23 am
I think I’ve just had the pressure put on me
January 8th, 2008 at 5:05 am
Hi anon #2 - yeah, I think the egg goes a long way to making them hold up a little better, especially when it comes to cooking. I’ve heard stories of people tyring to make them lighter by reducing the flour and/or egg, only to have them disintergrate when they touch the boiling water.
Hey again non-ironing anon - wow, I’ve never heard of gnocchi di marmalata, but they sound deliciously good and somewhat hazardous (especially if you try to eat them straight out of the pot, which is something I would be sorely tempted to do). I think I’ll have to give them a go! So, is your Mum the recipient of copious amounts of your homemade ice cream?!?!
Hey neil - glad you liked the post. And as far as I know, there are no little helping hands on the way
I was speaking figuratively of course.
Hey EG - hmm, is that pressure to learn that art of patterning gnocchi, or pressure to procreate ;-p
January 8th, 2008 at 6:26 am
Hazardous, I’ll say. Think microwaved jam doughnut and you’ll get the idea. Not copious amounts, more a v.slow drip feed of chocolate icecream (made with dark Lindt chocolate of the 70% cocoa variety) to mum; I don’t want to be the one to send her into a diabetic coma.
Love your work Mellie, always makes me slobber into the keyboard (in a good way).
Non-ironing anon
January 8th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
Sorry EG, didn’t mean to give you any performance anxiety, but with so many Melbourne blogger gals going down that path, it wouldn’t have been a surprise to hear of one more. Don’t think ‘pressure to procreate’, more like practise makes perfect ;-p
January 9th, 2008 at 3:25 am
Mellie, how about learning the art of patterning gnocchi whilst procreating?
Neil, I am already putting in a hectic pre-season