Thursday, March 24, 2011

Gnocchi

I almost never eat Gnocchi. I tried to make it once, when I was 12 or so, and failed miserably, and never tried since. Bought ones, whether fresh or not, are just never any good; rubbery and tasteless. So naturally I decided this should be my next goal, to make perfect, melt-in-your-mouth Gnocchi. And so I read all these Gnocchi guides, which contradicted each other, of course, as most cooking guides (especially Italian ones) do. So I had to guess which one was better, and basically just took advice from all of them.



Gnocchi tips:

- Use old potatoes (I used small ones, which I think was clever).
- Do not overcook them, should be just soft enough to poke through with a toothpick, but no more, otherwise they absorb too much water and won't be good.
- You can bake the potatoes with some coarse salt around, supposedly makes them even better. I didn't, but I will the next time.
- Peel, mash, and work the dough while the potatoes are still warm.
- Mash using a fork or a potato masher, but not through a thin mesh, this is not puree.


Ingredients:

1k Potatoes.
150-200g Flour. (The guides said the ratio should be 1:4 flour:potato, but I wanted them as soft as possible, it worked great)
2 Egg yolks.
50g Grated Parmesan.

- Cook (or bake) the potatoes in salt water.
- While cool enough to handle but still warm, peel and mash.
- Mix in flour and yolks.
- Mix in Parmesan.

Preparation:

- On a floured surface, take lemon sized batches of the dough, and roll into a sausage. Cut 2cm pieces.
- Cook in a large put filled with water and a little salt, until they float.

Sauce:

I made this classic butter-sage sauce, and added cherry tomatoes, which I did a few times before and was good, however this time the tomatoes weren't very fitting, partly because they weren't very good, but anyhow, next time I'll do it without.

100g Butter.
10 Sage leaves, chopped.
Nutmeg.
2 Garlic cloves, chopped.
Salt and pepper.


Melt butter in a large saucepan, fry until brown.
Add sage, garlic and nutmeg, after two minutes, before the garlic gets burnt, remove from fire.

I put the Gnocchi in the saucepan, so they'd get well coated with the sauce, but you can just pour it on top.

3 comments:

  1. So you peel the potatoes after they boil? Why is that? I've never done it that way, but I've also never made gnocchi.

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  2. You should always do that! Not just for Gnocchi, for mashed potatoes as well, it's just the way to cook potatoes, otherwise they absorb the water, which is not good. But don't listen to me, Joel here is much more convincing ;) http://newyork.timeout.com/restaurants-bars/18295/joel-robuchons-potato-puree

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  3. Wait. You're telling this to an Indiana girl who makes some of the best mashed potatoes known to man!?

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