Chronicles of Noodlemaking, Week 3: Potato Gnocchi

I finally decided to leave Tibet and leap on over to Italy. I love gnocchi, and even though I've seen it done and know it's not that hard, I had never made them myself. So for week 3, it was clearly gnocchi time. I went with the Basic Potato Gnocchi from the recent English translation of the Italian classic Il cucchiaio d'argento, The Silver Spoon.

I peeled Yukon Gold potatoes and steamed them, then mashed them and mixed in an egg, some salt, and some flour. The only tricky part was the first few minutes of kneading - I don't have the asbestos fingers of a chef, and it's important to start working while they're still hot from cooking so the ingredients blend well and the potatoes don't dry out. Otherwise it was fun, that kitchen alchemy that turns vegetables into a smooth firm dough in a matter of minutes.

Shaping the gnocchi was fun too. The dough was dense and responsive, and working quickly with a dough scraper always makes me feel like a pro. I stretched it out into logs, cut them into small pieces, then scored each with a fork before transferring it to a floured kitchen towel. As I shaped, I boiled the gnocchi in batches. They only take a few minutes to cook and it was easy to fall into a rhythm. Making massive quantities of gnocchi would be quite doable, I think, as long as you weren't dancing around too many other people on the journey from shaping surface to stovetop!

Even though we were only four for dinner, rather than the usual Sunday horde, Maman made a delicious and elaborate seafood dinner. The gnocchi fell in quite well among all the other tastes. I made a simple preparation, since mostly I just wanted to taste the noodles themselves - caramelised red onion, and lots of fresh sage, thyme, and rosemary from the garden, sauteed in a little butter.

They were AMAZING. I assumed it would take a couple of tries to get a good texture, and maybe this was just beginner's luck - but they were really, really good. The recipe warns that while too much flour makes them hard, too much potato makes them fall apart during cooking, and I'm sure it's a fine line that varies depending on your potato type, air temperature and humidity, age of flour, etc, etc. My theory right now, though, is that a good strategy is to not work too too much flour into the potatoes initially, but to flour the logs generously as you roll them out and cut them. This gives you a tender inside but a firm outer layer that keeps the gnocchi from falling apart in the water. It worked this time anyway - but I'll have to test the theory many more times before relying on it.

I only prepped half the gnocchi for supper, making the rest a few days later. By then the texture was not quite as perfect, but still enjoyable. This time I sauteed swiss chard, more caramelised onion, tomato, olives, herbs, and feta for a thicker sauce, different but also tasty.

My sister's response after tasting the gnocchi was, "How do you make potatoes DO that?!" Well, now you know. And now that I know, I suspect I'll be making potatoes do this a lot.