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I LOVE gnocchi. It’s rustic, and homey, and just plain delicious! So I decided I was going to learn how to do it. I’ve made a few different kinds of gnocchi and I have two tips.

1. Practice, practice, practice. You likely won’t get it right the first time you do it. But somewhere between the 5th and 10th time you make it, you’ll start to get a feel for the way the dough should be.
2. Do not overcook. When the little pillows pop to the surface, get them out of the water or they will turn into mashed potato soup.

I’ve made a couple different varieties, but will start with the recipe for regular gnocchi and give variations in the notes.

Ingredients

• 4 dry white potatoes, like russet (this is pretty crucial, if you use something like  a new potato or yellow potato they will be too wet and they flavor will overwhelm the recipe)
• 2 or 3 eggs
• 1/2 C or so of semolina flour
• 1 C or so of regular flour
• 1/4 t of salt

Directions

Bake or steam the potatoes. When they’ve cooled to the touch, remove the skins and mash in a large bowl. Get all the lumps out and if you’re a perfectionist, push the potatoes through a ricer. Wait till the potatoes are just warm to start making the gnocchi (if you want to make this a two day process, put the mashed potatoes in the fridge).

To the potatoes, add the flours and salt. Make a well and crack the eggs into it. Scramble them and gradually start to incorporate the flour and potatoes. Then toss the fork aside, and combine the ingredients with your hands till mixed. Turn the dough onto a floured, wooden cutting board. Wash the gook off your hands and flour them.  Knead, adding flour as necessary to prevent from sticking to your hands or the cutting board. This is one of those places where you’re going to have to figure out what the right consistency is by trial and error. I typcially knead for about 5-7 minutes, but many recipes say to go as long as 8-10.

Cut the dough into eighths. Take one and roll out like a snake. I like to make mine about 2cm in diameter (Paul says it’s about the same diameter of a rolling pin handle). Don’t roll it too narrow or they won’t be pillowy.

Flour your knife and cut the rolled out dough into 2cm pieces. Then is the fun part! I didn’t get how to do this for the longest time, so I’m providing step by step pictures of how to do this.

1. Press one of the pieces against the tines of a floured fork. (Most will tell you to use the back, but obviously the front works, too.)
2. Push the dough towards the tip of the tines.
3. The dough will start to pull up from the fork, so just grab the bottom of it and pull it in on itself towards the tip of the times.
4. Roll it off the tip of the fork and place on a floured surface. Repeat about 100 times.

Once you’ve got them all rolled and forked you can either cook immediately or freeze. To cook, drop into boiling water, stirring occassionally until they float to the surface. If you want to freeze them, put them on a floured cookie sheet in the freezer. Once they’re frozen, transfer them into a container.

I prefer gnocchi with some sort of saucy, sauce (I’m not a huge fan of it with pesto). I also really like sweet potato gnocchi. For that, substitute sweet potatoes for the regular potatoes and add a T or so of sugar and a t or so of nutmeg.