Gnocchi is an Italian word that indicates a lump of fresh pasta ready to be cooked and tasted right away. There are many a way to make each kind of gnocchi, and there are many kinds, prepared with a quite varying range of ingredients. Of course, here you will find the recipe of gnocchi with potatoes the way they are prepared in Tuscany.
The recipe is extremely easy humble, but you need to follow quite several little tricks during the preparation for the dish to result tasty and soft.
This recipe is made with potatoes, white flour, and salt. Nothing more! The very first tip is on the kind of potatoes to use. Always try to use the most common potatoes, the yellow ones. They are sweeter and firmer than other kinds while gnocchi are cooking. Feel free to experiment though! The next tip is to steam cook the potatoes, not to boil them. This will increase their water content by a minimum, as opposed to boiling them. Do not puncture their peel with a fork before cooking, do not overcook them. The fork needs to stick in nicely but the potato has to remain firm. Another tip is to peel them after cooking. Other tips are mentioned in the preparation bit.
Ingredients for 4 people:
- 800 grams of potatoes
- 250 grams of white flour
- salt to taste
- two cups of semolina flour (optional)
Preparation:
Steam cook the potatoes, peel them while hot, then let them cool down naturally. You may cook and peel them the previous day if you wish. Now you have to mash the potatoes. You may use a potato masher, a food processor, or a food mill. The latter is better as it produces fluffier mashed potatoes. Now prepare a clean working surface where you will knead the potatoes with the flour. Set the mashed potatoes on the surface and start adding the flour a little at a time, always using a soft touch to mix them together. Salt to taste. Keep adding flour until it is over, then set to rest for half hour. Now it is time to prepare the gnocchi!
With a knife cut a fist size portion of dough, then set it on the previously flour dusted working table and start rolling it into a long string about half inch in diameter. You may decide the size of your gnocchi by the thickness of your dough string. Make it as homogeneous as possible, then start chopping away bite size pieces of dough (about one inch). Grab a largetray or several medium ones, and dust them with the semolina flour or the regular white flour. Gently set the cut gnocchi on taking care that they never touch one another to prevent sticking together. Distribute one layer only and dust over with a light dusting of semolina. Continue until the dough is over.
Now fill a pan with 4 liters of water (a gallon), better if a tall and not to large one. Add salt to taste and when it is at a rolling boil drop in the gnocchi a few at a time (about twenty to twenty five). They are cooked once they come to the surface. Use a small colander or a perforated scoop to remove the cooked gnocchi and set them in a bowl with meat sauce or butter and grated Parmesan cheese. Repeat until you run out of raw gnocchi.
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