Potato Gnocchi

 

 

When you harvest a bumper crop of spuds from your vegetable garden, the rule is you have to make Potato Gnocchi. At least that's what my family keeps telling me.

Potato Gnocchi
from Lidia Matticchio Bastianiach 's Lidia's Family Table
Serves 4 

1kg floury potatoes, scrubbed
1 large egg, well beaten
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 to 2 cups plain flour, or as needed

Boil potatoes in their skins. Drain and allow to stand until cool enough to handle. Scrape skin from potato with paring knife. Press them through a potato ricer. Spread the riced potatoes into a thin, even layer on the work surface, sprinkle with salt and allow to cool completely.

Pour the egg over the potatoes and sprinkle with about a cup of the flour. Gather the potatoes into a ball, sprinkling with a little more flour if necessary to make the dough hold together. It should take no longer than 3 minutes to work the flour into the potato mixture; the longer the dough is kneaded, the more flour it will require, and the heavier it will become.

On a lightly floured surface, cut the dough into 3 equal pieces. Form the dough into a 45 cm rope. Slice rope into 1 1/2 cm thick rounds. Roll the gnocchi on a gnocchi paddle or hold the tines of a fork at a 45-degree angle to the table with the concave part facing up. Dip the tip of your thumb in flour. Take one gnocchi and with the tip of your thumb, press the dough lightly against the tines of the fork as you roll it downward toward the tip of the tines. As the dough wraps around the tip of your thumb, it will form into a dumpling. Set on a floured baking tray. Repeat with remaining dough. 

To cook gnocchi, drop into salted boiling water. Cook, stirring gently until tender, about 1 minute after they rise to the surface of the pot.

I served mine with Hand-Pounded Basil Pesto, because the thing that I have more of in my vegetable garden other than potatoes, is basil.