Gnocchi from Scratch

Gnocchi carbonara with scallops

It's a pasta? NO, it's potato? Both are right, it's two, two carbs in one! (Remember that Certs commercial?) For us carb addicts, gnocchi is the best of both worlds, and in the pasta making world, they are pretty easy to make. There's no need for a pasta maker, or a rolling pin, just a floured surface and I like to employ a crinkle cutter to give those little bits of goodness that nice scalloped edge.

I had the pleasure of making gnocchi with my granddaughter Ev this last year and her excitement over the crinkle cutter inspired me to give her one for Christmas. She is famous for her sweet potato gnocchi with a maple brown butter sauce, BTW. She's also on the cusp of becoming a graphic novelist at the tender age of... let's just say she's not in high school yet. More on that at the end of the post Back to the gnocchi!

I've tried many recipes over the years with variations in the ratio of mashed potato to flour to eggs. When I finally had developed an easy to work dough that produced tender yet firm gnocchi I was pretty excited. Then I had the gnocchi at Ports of Italy in Rockport, ME and I was blown away! They were light like feathers and pretty much melted in my mouth. It took all I had not to moan out-loud while savoring them. So, me being me, I asked the server if she could get me the recipe -- in reality expecting nothing of the sort.

A bit later she comes out of the kitchen with this piece of paper:

The black ink is gnocchi ingredients from the chef. The blue writing below is my notes as I was working to turn it into an actual recipe that includes instructions.

Thankfully I have a scale that converts to metric so the kilo and grams didn't require a calculator and a physicist. BTW, 1 kilogram of mashed potato is about 3-1/4 pounds and 300 grams of flour is about 2-1/2 cups which is about 10 ounces by weight. For my granddaughter Ev's sake, I emphasize that the equivalents are not exact (I'm sure she's fact checking me). Thankfully, unlike baking, gnocchi is not an exact science.

It's important to note that the reason these are so soft is because the dough is SO soft -- making it a bit of a challenge to work with. If on your first attempt you decide to add extra flour to firm it up, it's OK, you just don't want the flour to potato ratio to exceed 1:3. The recipe as it's written as about 1:4. OMG, I'm now going to climb out of the rabbit hole of OCD measurement geek-dom and get back to the recipe.

While I have made gnocchi with leftover mashed potatoes, I try to avoid that for a couple of reasons: first, many times the leftovers have been seasoned and have butter added, and in most cases I boiled the potatoes to cook them before mashing.

One might ask, why does the boiling matter? When you boil potatoes, a lot of the starch boils out in the process and that starch is important to helping to bind the ingredients in the gnocchi. I now bake my potatoes (russets preferably because of high starch content) and scrape out the potato for mashing (you can also run the potato through a ricer, but that's one of the tools that I don't have).

Check out my post about making mashed potatoes for use in other recipes.

THE RECIPE:

300 grams of flour (2-1/2 c or 10 oz by weight +/-)

1t salt (I save the pepper and parmesan for when I serve the gnocchi)

1 kilo mashed or riced potatoes (3-1/4 lbs +/-)

1 egg beaten

1. In a large bowl, whisk the flour and salt together

2. Add the mashed potatoes and blend until completely combined

3. Add the egg and work into the dough until completely combined

4. Use your hands to work the dough to insure that it is as smooth as possible and that there are no little chunks of potato lurking about.

If you're using the recipe as written and the dough feels to soft, refrigerate it for a couple of hours before shaping the gnocchi.

When you're ready to shape the dough make sure you work on a well floured surface (I love my pastry mat for this) and keep a small bowl of flour handy.

1. Line a cookie sheet that will fit in your freezer with wax paper or parchment. This is where you'll place the gnocchi once they are cut.

2. Take about 1/2 cup of dough and mold and roll it into a rope about 3/4" around.

3. Repeat until you have four or five ropes lined up next to each other.

4. With the crinkle cutter (or a knife) cut the ropes into 1/2" thick sliced.

5. Place the slices on the cookie sheet.

6. When the sheet is full, place it in the freezer for at least an hour until the gnocchi are frozen.

7. Divide them evenly into 4 1-quart zipper bags (just over a pound each) to freeze (until you're ready to cook them.

Gnocchi cook best is you freeze them first.

Even if you're cooking them when the same day, freezing helps keep them firm when you boil them.

Cook them in well salted, rapidly boiling water, gently stirring until they float to the top by themselves. That's how to tell when they are done.

NOTE: If you like your gnocchi pan fried, I would use a recipe with a higher flour content, these are so soft that they are almost impossible to saute without falling apart.

So back to my granddaughter Ev. As I mentioned she is a budding graphic novelist and has posted one of her comic strips to a site called tapas.io where if you search Bruce and Alfie! you'll find Ev's creation. She was telling me the other day that all 16 views were from people she knows, when trying to grow one's web presence, is the people you don't know that can really help that along. Check it out, who knows, maybe she'll be famous one day and well all be able to say 'We remember her when...'!