Kristendish

Fresh Gnocchi

This has become one of my go-to dinners when I’m in the mood to get my hands dirty with some potato dough. A lot easier than they will have you believe. I usually use yukon gold potatoes just because I think they are more flavorful than Russets, but this time I went with the classic Russets and they were similarly lovely and held together much better (duh, probably why the recipe calls for Russets in the first place!)

Ingredients

• 2 large Russet potatoes (or the equivalent in another type of potato)
• 1 egg
• 1/2-3/4 C flour
• Dash salt

Directions

1. Peel, quarter, boil potatoes until tender. Drain (save potato water), and wait until cool enough to handle.
2. Using a fork, press down on potatoes to create fluffy mashed potato. It’s important to work lightly with this step and future steps so the potato stays fluffy. Apparently, there’s an apparatus called a ricer that makes fluffy potato mash much faster, but I do not own one and this works just as well.
3. Whip egg in small container and add about 1/2 to top of potato along with flour, salt then fold ingredients into potato with fork/spatula/hands, which ever works for you. Knead dough lightly until thoroughly incorporated. Add flour as needed so dough holds together and is not sticky- but don’t add too much!
4. Cut dough into 8 pieces, roll out each into a log. Take one log and cut of 1/2 inch pieces all the way down. Using fork, create grooves in each piece like you’ve seen before. Repeat with all logs.
5. Boil in old potato water, add some if needed. Cook in 2 batches, gnocchi are done when they rise to the top.
6. They can be served with any accoutrement you’d use with pasta, I like to join then with a prosciutto-garlic-greens and light cream sauce.