For those unfamiliar with this type of pasta, gnocchi is a variety of thick, soft noodle or dumpling. Made with the same traditional durum wheat flour with added potato, breadcrumbs and ricotta cheese. Normally gnocchi is eaten as entrées or as minestrone (soup), a lot of variations have been made that it now becomes a meal by themselves. For those who familiar with making home-made gnocchi, then you know that the process can be tricky at best. What you want are light, fluffy dumpling pilows but what we often get is dense chewy dough balls.
The trick actually lies with the rolling process, instead of ingredients. When rolling it out, you want a light touch, gently stretching the dough outwards as you roll it into shape. A heavy touch will compress the dough, thus making it dense and chewy. Gnocchi can be paired with any of your favourite sauce, though a simple tomato sauce with Parmesan or a light butter cream sauce will do.
Ingredients
for the gnocchi
1kg of Russet potatoes
3 cups of plain or all-purpose flour
1 egg
salt and freshly ground black pepper
for the tomato sauce
2 cans of peeled plum tomatoes (try La Doria or La Valle)
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely sliced
a handful of freshly grated Parmesan
salt and freshly ground black pepper
extra virgin olive oil
To make the gnocchi : Boil the potatoes with the skin left on. Cool them a little, then peel and mash them in a bowl. Add the egg, salt and pepper to taste and combine well. Start adding the flour in by hand, with half of it as a beginning. Mix everything with your hand until the mixture holds together as a dough.
Put the dough out on a lightly floured smooth, clean surface. Knead lightly for about a minute, adding more flour if needed, if the dough sticks too easily to the surface or to your hands. Once the dough is smooth and manageable, divide it into smaller portions, each about the size of an orange.
Flour your hands lightly (this will be the tricky part which will determine whether you'll have a light, fluffy dumplings or a dense, chewy type) Using both hands, and a light touch, roll the dough out with a back and forth motion, starting at the center and stretching the dough out, to form a roll. Don't put so much pressure as to compress the dough, but enough pressure to create a rope of dough. The trick is to stretch the dough sideways as you are rolling. If the rope becomes too long for your surface, cut it in half, and start working on that smaller segment.
Roll the dough out until the roll is about the size of a middle finger. Cut each roll into a 1-inch pieces. Continue until all dough is used. To make it more authentically Italian, (and if you have the patience), make ridges by using your index finger and the back of a fork in a rolling action which will create an imprints of the fork and indentation of your finger which will allow the sauce get trapped on the surface of the gnocchi.
Place the gnocchi on a lightly floured tray. You can frozen these gnocchi in a freezer by covering them using cling wrap.
To cook the gnocchi, fill a large saucepan half-way with water. Bring to boil, add a few teaspoon of salt and drop the gnocchi in the water, one by one. Try not to fell the gnocchi on top of each other, but rest on the bottom of the pan in a single layer instead. It is imperative that you cook the gnocchi batch by batch as not to crowd all of the into the saucepan to prevent them from sticking onto each other. As the gnocchi cooks, the will rise to the surface after a few minutes. Use a slotted spoon and remove the gnocchi into a colander. Keep the water boiling briskly and repeat untill all gnocchi is cooked.
For the sauce : Heat some olive oil into a medium sized saucepan. Add the garlic and cook until the lightly coloured, then add the tomatoes. Mush and squash the tomatoes as much as you can.
Season the sauce with salt and pepper. As soon as it comes to the boil, reduce the heat to low and let simmer for 15 to 20 minutes. Once you have a medium thick consistency of the sauce, remove from heat, add the Parmesan, stir well. Combine the gnocchi with the sauce and serve immediately.
