Weekend with Gnocchi

This weekend I am going to share with you my recipe for a family favorite… Gnocchi.   We have no  historic or geographical connection to gnocchi…  I just started making it one day after we found out Ben loved them and most importantly wasn’t allergic to them.   I think I learned this from watching a “travel” show (not even a cooking show)… and I am not sure that I really learned how… I just tried to repeat some of what I saw while watching an elderly Italian lady make them… All was not shown so what I didn’t see or understand I just kind of made up.  Even with me “hacking” my way through this they came out so delicious I have continued making these ever since.

My wife Isabelle encouraged me to share this recipe with everyone… so here goes even though I worry that my recipe and approach is going to cause some of you experts to roll your eyes…

oh… ya

before I share that recipe I feel like writing something completely unrelated.  (sorry to any new readers my writing often goes off topic…those familiar with my blog are already use to it…. in any case you all are welcome to just skip this part and move on to the recipe)

During Christmas break a colleague, let’s call him Nate, texted me the following book:

He thought this was really funny and I thought it was really cool… (He still gives me a hard time for spinning human hair and crocheting a hat out of it… see Weekend with Whair )

I visited amazon to price the book and while looking at this book I noticed in the “Frequently bought together” section another cat book.

WOW! what a weird book.   While pondering if I was a negligent cat owner since I had not yet broached the subject of abstinence, drugs, and Satanism with my cat Coco… I noticed an entire collection of “CRAZY WEIRD” books in the “Customers who bought this item also bought” section.

CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS!   I spent several hours clicking on books and tabbing through “also bought” lists.

You can even… and learn all kinds of things.   Here is one of my favorite finds from my weird book exploring time.

Date pooing can be an incredibly delicate thing… and this book is full of useful information including a set of  rules.  (here is an example... just a subset of the rules… don’t want to ruin the book for you)

There is almost a never ending supply of weird books.  HMMM… I don’t read enough.

BACK TO GNOCCHI

Ingredients:

• Potatoes (I use Russet)
• Olive Oil
• Flour

Steps:

This is a simple recipe… maybe some tedious steps… but the results are fantastic.

Step 1:  I start with “day old” cold peeled potatoes.  When I say day old I mean that they were boiled or cooked in a pressure cooker the day before and have been in the refrigerator for at least a day… (sometimes more).   Grate half of one of the potatoes and then sprinkle oil and flour (about 1/2 teaspoon of oil and 1 heaping teaspoon of flour) over the grated potato. (See picture above)  Continue until you have no more potatoes.

Step 2:  With hands (probably your own) mix the potatoes, oil, and flour until a nice dough is formed.  (See below)  The dough should be similar to a bread dough… maybe a bit “stickier”.   Make sure there are no potato lumps.   It is better to not have enough flour than too much at this stage.

Step 3:  Place dough in the refrigerator for at least an hour and let it rest.  You could possibly search for weird books on amazon during this time.

Step 4:  Grab a small handful of the cold dough and roll into a dough log.   The dough will have changed and you will most likely have to add flour.  I do this adjustment with each small handful judging how much flour to add by how well it rolls out.  In the picture above you can see the dough.  It should be very similar at this time to bread or roll dough.

Step 5:   Cut dough log into even “pillows”.  (all of this “log” talk is making me think of a book mentioned above)

Step 6:  Roll pillows down a fork to add groves… not sure that this is necessary but Ben would not have eaten them if they didn’t look like the store bought ones.  You will  have to periodically flour the fork

Step 7: Place ridged dough pillows into boiling salty water.  My water is very salty.   The water will stop boiling when you add the gnocchi and they all will sink.  I don’t add very many as you can see from the picture above.

You know the gnocchi is done when it has all risen to the top of the water.

Step 8:  Remove gnocchi from the boiling water, draining it,  and place the hot gnocchi into an ice chilled bowl and let cool down.   I have no idea why I am doing this… but this is what I saw on that travel show.  Yes already we are at step 8…  I know lots of steps…. but I promise it is really worth it.

In the picture above you can see the gnocchi in three states… raw, cooling, and ready to eat.  If you are worried about timing…. here is how I do it.  When I remove the gnocchi and place it in the ice bowl I wait until the water is back to a “good” boil then add the next batch.  When the next batch is done I remove the “cooling gnocchi” and replace it with the newly cooked gnocchi.   This seems to be the right timing… although…. maybe none of this matters.  I also make sure the chilled bowl has no salt water and if it does I empty it out and dry it before I add the next batch.

Step 9: EAT…   Believe it or not you can just put these in the microwave and warm them back up.  Ben likes them this way and just pours ketchup on the top.  He asked me if I was taking this picture for my blog.  When I said yes and asked him if that is ok… he stated “YES… They like me on your blog”.

I don’t eat my gnocchi the Ben way.   Here is my favorite way to have gnocchi.

I get sage… fresh if possible.  I am really luck this weekend since my sage bush still had leaves.  (really mild winter).

I cut up the sage and add it to butter in a frying pan… then add the gnocchi.   I sauté this until the gnocchi has a light brown outer crust.  I mentioned that I didn’t know if you had to do all of the work cooling down the gnocchi… I do know that it is a must if you want to sauté it like this.

This one of my favorite dishes… and is really the only way I eat gnocchi.   I welcome anyones suggestions since I am sure there are many great recipes for gnocchi… hmm… maybe I should go look for “weird gnocchi” books on amazon.