Ernesto’s Gnocchi

 Posted on November 27, 2016 by

Ernesto’s Gnocchi

Gnocchi is a potato dough dumpling which is served with any desired sauce as you would any pasta dish. As in most Italian cooking, a dash of this and a pinch of that is part of the recipe.

  • 6 cups potatoes ((riced))
  • 2 cups flour
  • 3 eggs
  • 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
  • 1 pinch salt
  1. Boil about 6 pounds of potatoes with the skin left on until completely cooked.
  2. Drain from water and let stand for 10 minutes.
  3. While the potatoes are still warm peel the skin off. Use a hot pad to hold each potato and peel with a small knife.
  4. Push the peeled potatoes though a ricer and into a large bowl. Make sure to discard the hard part of the potato left in the ricer.
  5. Add the flour, eggs, vegetable oil and the salt to the riced potatoes in the bowl.
  6. Using a large spoon fold the mixture until all ingredients are mixed. At this point the dough should be some what sticky.
  7. Spread out a table cloth and chopping block and coat both with flour. Put the dough mixture on the chopping block and coat with flour.
  8. By hand, roll out the dough into a long strand and cut into pieces about the size of your fist. Set aside these pieces of dough and sprinkle with flour.
  9. Taking one piece at a time, roll out by hand into a smaller long strand about a half inch in diameter. If outside surface of dough gets sticky just add a little bit of flour.
  10. Cut this smaller strand of dough into ½ to ¾ inch balls which are called gnocchi. Let stand on floured table cloth for about 15 minutes.
  11. Prepare a large pot of boiling water and drop the gnocchi into the boiling water. As the gnocchi raise to the top of the water skim off with a slotted spoon making sure to drain as best as possible.
  12. Put the gnocchi in a serving bowl and mix with your favorite sauce.

Be advised that it will take some practice in order to develop a feel for the correct hardness of the dough. The hardness of the dough will determine how you prefer your gnocchi. The recipe listed is a good starting point. The age of the potatoes will determine how much moisture they have. Newer potatoes have more moisture than older potatoes and there for will need a little more flour. Caution should be taken not to add too much flour: add the flour in small amounts.

Pasta
Italian

Comments are closed.

Recent Comments