I love Italian food and have always bought gnocchi from the
shop. I have often looked at the recipes for making gnocchi and shied away with
the thought of making it. Now I have time on my hands and thought I must try making
basic potato gnocchi and if all goes well, to experiment with different kinds
of gnocchi. Upon reading the basic recipes it seemed to me that just mashing potatoes
with a masher would not really work as you needed air in there to make the
final product fluffy. So I spent time to look for a potato ricer. Do you think
I could find one when I looked? It is always the case that when you want something
you can never find it and once you buy is after hunting in many places you will
see it on every shop shelf! Finally I saw it in a shop and jumped with joy. Then
the realisation that I do need the right kind of potato too! So off to the shop
to buy red potatoes.
Ingredients (makes for 4 servings)
750 gms of red or Desiree potatoes (helpful if they are
smallish as they need to be boiled whole)
200 gms of flour (I used the plain one but you can use bread
flour or durum wheat flour)
Salt and pepper to taste
Preparation
Put the potatoes in a pan and cover with cold water. Boil
the potatoes till a skewer goes easily though them. It takes about 20 – 25 minutes.
Peel the potatoes and mash then using the ricer. The use of ricer ensures there
is plenty of air between the particles of the potato and allows the water to
evaporate more. Sprinkle salt and pepper to taste on top of the potato and
leave it to cool for a little while. Then add 200 gms of flour and slowly work
it into the potatoes. Do not knead and over work the mix as it will get sticky
and you will end up adding more flour, which makes for heavy doughy gnocchi.
Once it has all come together place it on a lightly floured
surface and just bring it nicely together in a ball. Then divide the dough into
4 parts (make a round shape, cut in into half and then quarter using a knife).
Then each part can be rolled by hand to a long sausage shape about an inch in
diameter. Then, using a knife you need to slice into the dough, making pieces that
are about half inch. Then you can roll each gnocchi over the prongs of a fork
making indentations. This roughing up of the surface is necessary for the sauce
to cling to the gnocchi.
At this point you can either cook
the gnocchi right away or you can put gnocchi on a foil sheet and put in the
freezer. This is important as if they are put in a box or freezer bag they will
clump together and not keep the shape. To cook, bring a pan of water to boil
and drop the gnocchi in it. It is better to do them in small batches as it
cooks within a minute or two, rising to the surface. Using a slotted spoon remove
the gnocchi and place into the sauce. You can make tomato and basil sauce or
just pesto sauce. You can see my blog about making your own pesto sauce. (http://mrigajoshiwilliams.blogspot.com.au/2011/10/pesto-versatile-sauce.html
)
This time I used basil pesto. The gnocchi turned out to be
real soft and melted in the mouth. Strange how different that is from the
readymade gnocchi which in hindsight is a lot more solid and chewy. There are
many recipes of gnocchi and here are some which I looked at –
Enjoy!
