Gnocchi

I have never made gnocchi and decided I want to try it tonight. I will be checking a few recipes, but do any of you have any tips to make them light and fluffy?

b

don't overwork the dough, and don't put too much flour.

Barb, here's the CIA recipe which I use successfully:

4 lb peeled russet potatoes
salt as required
1 oz butter
2 egg yolks
2 eggs
pepper as required
pinch nutmeg -- optional
1 lb all purpose flour
2 oz butter
3 oz grated Parmesan
1 oz chopped parsely, or as required

YIELD: 10 portions

1. Scrub, peel, and cut the potatoes into equal-size pieces. Place the potatoes in a pot with enough cold water to cover them by about 2 in. Add salt to taste. Gradually bring the water to a simmer over medium heat. Cover and simmer until the potatoes are easily pierced with a fork.

2. Drain the potatoes. Return them to the pot and let them dry briefly over very low heat until no more steam rises from the potatoes, or spread them out on a sheet pan and dry them in a low oven.

3. Push the potatoes through a rice or food mill while very hot. Add the butter, egg yolks, eggs, salt, pepper, and nutmeg (if using). Mix well. Incorporate enough of the flour to make a stiff dough.

4. Roll out the dough into cylinders about 1 in in diameter. Cut the cylinders into pieces about 2 in long. Roll over the tines of a fork, pressing and rolling the dough with your thumb.

5. Cook the gnocchi in simmering salted water for 2 to 3 minutes, or until they rise to the surface. Lift the gnocchi from the water with a slotted spoon or drain in a colander.

6. Heat the butter in a sauté pan, add the gnocchi, and toss until very hot and coated with butter. Add the Parmesan, parsley, salt, and pepper to taste. Serve at once on heated plates.

Cook's Note:

My biggest mistake has been not to get the potatoes dry enough -- the gnocchi gets soggy.

Bob is right. It is worth buying a potato ricer to get the potatoes to the right texture while they are hot. He is also right about "russet" -- don't even try with red potatoes or other waxy textured ones.

You have to burn your fingers working in the flour. Very short time frame to get the dough together.

Lidia Bastianich did a wonderful demo of gnocchi prep on her TV show.

F

...My biggest mistake has been not to get the potatoes dry enough -- the gnocchi gets soggy.

I've found that I prefer potatoes steamed instead of boiled. More of the starch remains and you're not washing out nutrients and flavor. I do this for mashed potatoes and potato salad, but I've never made gnocchi, although I like it. I've steamed them in both the pressure cooker and in a pasta pot.

Frank is right.

Here's a link to Linda's recipe and photos of the key steps; I haven't seen the video:

http://www.randomhouse.com/knopf/enewsl ... _june.html

POTATO GNOCCHI
Gnocchi di Patate

It isn't hard to make featherlight gnocchi. The main thing to keep in mind is this: the less flour you add and thelkess you hand the dough, the lighter the gnocchi will be. The less moisture there is in the potatoes before you start adding flour, the less flour you will need, so the following tips for making light gnocchi all have to do with removing as much moisture from the potatoes as possible:

* Don't overcook the potatoes--their skins will pop open and the flesh will soak up water.
* Rice the potatoes while they are still quite warm and steaming--rubber gloves help.
* Spread the riced potatoes out in a thin layer so the steam rising from them has a chance to escape.


Once you form gnocchi, they must be cooked or frozen immediately or they turn to mush. To freeze them, pop the tray with the gnocchi on them right in the freezer: When they are solid, scrape them into a resealable plastic bag.

Put the potatoes in a lare pot and pour in enough cold water to cover them by at least three fingers. Bring to a boil and cook until they are tender when pierced with a skewer, about 40 minutes. Lift them out of the water and let stand just until cool enough to handle. The hotter the potatoes are when you peel and rice them, the fluffier the riced potatoes will be. Scrape the peels off the potatoes and rice the potatoes. Spread the riced potatoes out in a thin layer to expose as much of their surface as possible to the air.

While the potatoes are cooling, bring 6 quarts of salted water to a boil in an 8-quart pot over high heat.

On a cool, preferably marble, work surface, gather the cold riced potatoes into a loose mound with a well in the center. Beat the eggs, 1 teaspoon salt, and the white pepper together in a small bowl until blended and pour into the well. Work the potatoes and egg together with both hands, gradually adding as much flour as necessary to form a firm but moist dough. Stop frequently as you mix to scrape up the dough that sticks to the work surface and reincorporate it into the dough. Forming the dough should take no longer than 10 minutes from start to end. The longer the dough is worked, the more flour it will require and the heavier the dough--and the finished gnocchi--will be. As you work, dust the dough, your hands, and the work surface lightly with flour as soon as the dough begins to feel sticky.

Forming Gnocchi: (See photos at left.)

1. Work the dough with both hands.
2. Cut the dough in half (note the texture of the dough), and then cut each half into thirds.
3. Clean excess dough from your hands by rubbing them with some fresh flour.
4. After rolling each piece of dough into a rope, cut crosswise into 1/2 inch pieces.
5. Roll each piece into a rough ball with your floured hands.
Press a dough ball against the tines with your floured thumb, while rolling downward against the tines.
6. Or press the dough ball against the nongrating side of a cheese grater.

Excerpted from Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich Copyright 2001 by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich. Excerpted by permission of Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

I love it! I make a killer spinach version, but don't often take the time.

Yes, be really careful not to overwork it. But it's YOU, Barb, you'll be fine!

Lotsa good advice above. A note on toppings. Of course you can top your gnocchi with anything you top or toss pasta with, but our favorite is pesto.

I have never made gnocchi and decided I want to try it tonight. I will be checking a few recipes, but do any of you have any tips to make them light and fluffy? b

At the risk of sounding like an infidel and heathen, gnocchi and, similarly, cavatelli were two dishes which while I was growing up we, i.e. my family of heathens and infidels and I, valued just because of their weight and a certain chewiness. My grandfather used to refer to them as "bullets." And to this day I still actively try to avoid the feather-lightedness in them and several other of my dumplings, e.g. Semmelknödel or Leberknödel. Ain't no accountin' for taste, eh!?

I hear you paisan, and I share your affection for the chew, but a well made gnocchi is at once chewy AND light. It's a miracle food. I've never really mastered the art, and I know few who have.

There's a place on 187th st, Borgatti's, a fresh pasta shop, and they make cavatelli that will bring tears to your eyes.

I like many sauces on gnocchi, but I think they reach their highest form when paired with garlicky broccoli rabe.

Thanks, guys. I will make sure to get russets. I don't have a ricer, but I'll but them through the food mill and report the results. I'll take photos. I am thinking with brown butter and sage OR with brown butter and basil from my front "garden," the little patch of mulch in front of our condo where I've planted basil and rosemary. Guess I should plant sage next.

B

There's a place on 187th st, Borgatti's, a fresh pasta shop, and they make cavatelli that will bring tears to your eyes.

I have often imagined suicide by gavadeel ... with some beautiful rigott and tasty gravy ... a bowl, a spoon, and me.

Well, I worked from Lydia's recipe...they really were nice and light. I think I probably could have cooked the potatoes a tiny bit longer. I was so worried (too worried) about over cooking...but I only needed to use two of the three cups of flour, so the potatoes were dry--in a good sense.

This recipe made a ton...I hope I'll freeze them.

I did the brown butter and sage. My daughter's verdict: these are disgusting!

Oh well.

It is one heckuva cheap meal, but worth it? Not for a digusting rating from darling daughter. I will cook the others and serve them with pesto. I think she won't find them so disgusting..

B

I did the brown butter and sage. My daughter's verdict: these are disgusting!

Oh well.

B

I have been trying to think what would provoke that response. Did you have the salt right? Seasoning is kind of important. Of course if YOU liked them, and if your daughter is young enough, it may mean nothing that she said that...

When I cook from that recipe they are far from disgusting...

I have also made "Parisian gnocchi" from Thomas Keller's recipe. These are interesting, no potato in them whatever. You make an eggy dough with fresh fines herbes, and extrude them with a pastry bag over simmering water. Oh, right they also contain some Comté cheese.

The initial product is a little closer to "disgusting" -- the texture can be a little gluey. But you brown them up in a sauté pan before serving. It is interesting that two such different things can share the same name.

It is as if there were a kind of oyster called an "Oreo" or something...

F

Sorry, I should have clarified. *I* thought they were fabulous! Bryn didn't like:

1. The brown butter
2. Sage

She's 11. While she loves to cook, her tastes are....narrow.
'

My gnocchi were NOT disgusting.

Bryn is just wrong.

b

Once you get them you can do almost anything with them. I like a version my friend/chef Paul Schunder did: Pumpkin Gnocchi with Cinnamon Brown Butter.

rwj

Thanks, guys. I will make sure to get russets. I don't have a ricer, but I'll but them through the food mill and report the results. I'll take photos. I am thinking with brown butter and sage OR with brown butter and basil from my front "garden," the little patch of mulch in front of our condo where I've planted basil and rosemary. Guess I should plant sage next. B

Barb, I too will be watching for your reply. I too do not own a ricer, and do own a food mill. I have often wondered how mashed potatoes would come out if I put them through the food mill instead of using the mix master.

Sorry this is late but what has already been said .....

+ if you can, start with old potatoes - somewhat shriveled are best
+ steam or bake - the drier, the better. If you must boil, then boil in the jacket and let sit in the hot pan after you dump out the water.
+ rice the potatos
+ add only part of the flour, using the last bit to finish off the formation
+ don't over mix - I like to sprinkle the flour on the riced potatoes and then toss them together rather than using a utensil. It will get ropey and at the very end use your hands.

Bob, There was a big, long article about mashed potatoes in the NYT. One of the things that stayed with me was that the guy thought it did NOT matter if you riced or milled (or mashed by hand WITH THE PROPER MASHER)--no blenders or processors, though, or you get glue.

Christina, the things I did right, thanks to people directing me to Lydia: used on 2 of the 3 c. of flour. Dried the potatoes well. I do that no matter what I'm making...Lydia even wants you to spread the riced potatoes out to dry more as they cool.

I think another of the reasons Bryn didn't like them was for how light they were...she's def. used to something a bit more toothsome...

I got good and shaping them by the time I made the whole lot of them, though..Yes, I'll try again.

b

Barb, if you use the food mill to do your potatoes, please specify which disk you use. Mine has three disks with different size holes.

Ha--Bob, I used the biggest of the three (well, the one with the biggest holes)...I am so lazy: I figured it would be easier!

B