Granini's Gnocchi
(It's a terrible picture. Please don't judge. They're DELICIOUS, I swear!)
Hello all!
Today you're getting a three-fer! Whoot whoot!
Three recipes uploaded to my blog on the same day.
Why this super awesome bonus splurge of good fortune?!?
Because first of all, I wanted to send some good cheer during this time of the pandemic. Anything to keep your mind off the horrible things going on in the world is a good thing.
Secondly, I made my most fav dish of late, gnocchi with veggies and cream sauce a couple nights ago and it was DELISH. And the only way to make gnocchi is to start with a really great batch of mashed potatoes. SO, I thought I'd give you recipes for all three dishes at once: mashed potatoes, gnocchi, and my gnocchi with veggies in cream sauce.
So there you have it, my blessings to you.
May your kitchen emit forth delicious aromas as a lovely distraction.
Please stay safe out there!!
Ingredients
2 ½ cups mashed potatoes
2 ½ cups flour
1 egg
*Here's the thing: you don't have to use 2 1/2 cups. If you don't have 2 ½ cups, don't use that much. It just needs to be equal parts mashed potatoes and flour. The egg just binds it all together. So if you have about half the amount, simply crack your egg into a bowl, whisk it vigorously, and then only pour about ½ the egg mixture into your gnocchi batter. I promise, it'll work AND be delicious.
Directions
- Fill a large pot with hot water. Add a sprinkle of salt and bring to a boil.
- Sprinkle some of the flour onto a clean surface area. Plop on your pile of mashed potatoes. Pour the flour on the top of the potatoes.
- Knead the pile a little bit, and then make a crater in the center and crack your egg into there.
- Knead the whole mess around until it feels roughly like bread dough.
- Lightly sprinkle with flour on the top.
- Cut your dough into 5 or 6 chunks. They don't have to be even. Just chunks that will be easy enough to work with.
- With each chunk, roll out the potato dough into a long tube shape.
- Now, here's the dealio. My friend Judy, who happens to be Italian, and whose family taught her how to make gnocchi, so I believe she's a pretty darned good resource, taught me this detailed technique on how to roll the balls of gnocchi off your fork to make this pretty pattern. The pattern enables the sauce to stick to the gnocchi and fill all the little crevices. But I forgot. And I was in a hurry. And I was hungry, so I didn't want to try to figure it out. And Judy was in California and couldn't show me again. So when Judy gets back from California, I'll ask her to show me again, and I'll post detailed instructions on how to do that. But until then, I cheated and just used my dough scraper like this one:
to cut my dough into small, bite sized pieces. And it worked out pretty darned well, even if I do say so myself. At least, for a quick and easy way to cheat my way through.
Once all your little gnocchi pieces are cut and ready to go, it's time to cook them.
- Get yourself a drying rack (I use my cookie racks) ready with a drying towel underneath to sop up all the water that will drip off your gnocchi. In your boiling pot of water (with a wee bit of salt added), add about 8 gnocchi at a time to the water. Have a slotted spoon or a scooper ready to go, because they're only going to cook for 2 minutes or so.
- Once your gnocchi pop up to the surface, scoop them out and plop them down onto your drying rack. If they don't pop up after 3 minutes, feel free to stir your water around a little bit, and they'll float right on up to the top. After several batches, the water will become murkier, and waiting for the gnocchi to surface is a bit like watching a ghost appear out of a horror film. Terrifying, yet satisfying. The gnocchi appearances that is, not the appearances of the ghosts. Ghost appearances are always terrifying. To me. At least.
I use a scooper like this one:
It's the same scooper I use to get my fried chicken out of my oil when I'm making General Tso's chicken or chicken tenders.
- Once all your gnocchi are cooked and are sitting on the rack, you're all set to make your veggies and cream sauce. If there are any leftover gnocchi, which for me, there always are, you can pop them into a zip lock bag and freeze them, and they'll be ready to plop into your future soupy goodness later on.
- Gnocchi can be used as a substitute for any pasta sauces you love and adore. So feel free to make my gnocchi with veggies & cream sauce, or toss some of my spaghetti sauce on them. Or maybe pesto. Or into my tomato and pepper soup. Or add them into your beef stew.
Serve them up however you like!
Enjoy!!
For those of you who like pictures, here you go!
Plop your egg right in the middle of the pile o'goo
Knead the mixture until it looks a bit like bread dough and the flour is all encorporated.
Sprinkle the top with a little more flour
Cut into chunks
DO NOT ADD MORE FLOUR AT THIS POINT... SEE BELOW...
*Do NOT sprinkle with even MORE flour like I did here. I was tempted, thinking it would be easier to roll out. But the extra flour made it SOOOO much harder to roll out the piece.
*Here is my very lopsided, very uneven, very hard to roll piece that I had added more flour to. The rest of my gnocchi rolls were easier to roll out without the extra flour.
Here are the rest of my gnocchi rolls. Much easier to roll out without extra flour. They didn't stick to the counter like I thought they would, and they rolled out more evenly. Next time I would roll them out even thinner.
Once your rolls are all rolled out, it's time to invoke the special 'rolling off the fork technique' that I learned from Judy. But I forgot out how to do that. So I just did it the simpler way and chopped them up with my dough scraper.
This way was simpler, but it won't allow the sauce to stick to the pretty little crevices. Alas.
Just another camera angle so you can see I'm cutting them up at an angle.
The gnocchi sink when you first plunk them into the water. As soon as they begin to rise (like these four did), you can scoop them out of the water. It only takes a minute or two for them to cook.
My lovely cooked gnocchi, ready to plunk into cream sauce. Or spaghetti sauce. Or pesto. Or whatever your heart's desire!!!
This is my favorite way to serve the gnocchi:
Granini's Gnocchi with veggies in cream sauce
Enjoy!!
* * * * *
Granini's Gnocchi
(It's a terrible picture. Please don't judge. They're DELICIOUS, I swear!)
Hello all!
Today you're getting a three-fer! Whoot whoot!
Three recipes uploaded to my blog on the same day.
Why this super awesome bonus splurge of good fortune?!?
Because first of all, I wanted to send some good cheer during this time of the pandemic. Anything to keep your mind off the horrible things going on in the world is a good thing.
Secondly, I made my most fav dish of late, gnocchi with veggies and cream sauce a couple nights ago and it was DELISH. And the only way to make gnocchi is to start with a really great batch of mashed potatoes. SO, I thought I'd give you recipes for all three dishes at once: mashed potatoes, gnocchi, and my gnocchi with veggies in cream sauce.
So there you have it, my blessings to you.
May your kitchen emit forth delicious aromas as a lovely distraction.
Please stay safe out there!!
Ingredients
2 ½ cups mashed potatoes
2 ½ cups flour
1 egg
*Here's the thing: you don't have to use 2 1/2 cups. If you don't have 2 ½ cups, don't use that much. It just needs to be equal parts mashed potatoes and flour. The egg just binds it all together. So if you have about half the amount, simply crack your egg into a bowl, whisk it vigorously, and then only pour about ½ the egg mixture into your gnocchi batter. I promise, it'll work AND be delicious.
Directions
- Fill a large pot with hot water. Add a sprinkle of salt and bring to a boil.
- Sprinkle some of the flour onto a clean surface area. Plop on your pile of mashed potatoes. Pour the flour on the top of the potatoes.
- Knead the pile a little bit, and then make a crater in the center and crack your egg into there.
- Knead the whole mess around until it feels roughly like bread dough.
- Lightly sprinkle with flour on the top.
- Cut your dough into 5 or 6 chunks. They don't have to be even. Just chunks that will be easy enough to work with.
- With each chunk, roll out the potato dough into a long tube shape.
- Now, here's the dealio. My friend Judy, who happens to be Italian, and whose family taught her how to make gnocchi, so I believe she's a pretty darned good resource, taught me this detailed technique on how to roll the balls of gnocchi off your fork to make this pretty pattern. The pattern enables the sauce to stick to the gnocchi and fill all the little crevices. But I forgot. And I was in a hurry. And I was hungry, so I didn't want to try to figure it out. And Judy was in California and couldn't show me again. So when Judy gets back from California, I'll ask her to show me again, and I'll post detailed instructions on how to do that. But until then, I cheated and just used my dough scraper like this one:
- Get yourself a drying rack (I use my cookie racks) ready with a drying towel underneath to sop up all the water that will drip off your gnocchi. In your boiling pot of water (with a wee bit of salt added), add about 8 gnocchi at a time to the water. Have a slotted spoon or a scooper ready to go, because they're only going to cook for 2 minutes or so.
- Once your gnocchi pop up to the surface, scoop them out and plop them down onto your drying rack. If they don't pop up after 3 minutes, feel free to stir your water around a little bit, and they'll float right on up to the top. After several batches, the water will become murkier, and waiting for the gnocchi to surface is a bit like watching a ghost appear out of a horror film. Terrifying, yet satisfying. The gnocchi appearances that is, not the appearances of the ghosts. Ghost appearances are always terrifying. To me. At least.
- Once all your gnocchi are cooked and are sitting on the rack, you're all set to make your veggies and cream sauce. If there are any leftover gnocchi, which for me, there always are, you can pop them into a zip lock bag and freeze them, and they'll be ready to plop into your future soupy goodness later on.
- Gnocchi can be used as a substitute for any pasta sauces you love and adore. So feel free to make my gnocchi with veggies & cream sauce, or toss some of my spaghetti sauce on them. Or maybe pesto. Or into my tomato and pepper soup. Or add them into your beef stew.
Enjoy!!
For those of you who like pictures, here you go!
Sprinkle the top with a little more flour
DO NOT ADD MORE FLOUR AT THIS POINT... SEE BELOW...
*Do NOT sprinkle with even MORE flour like I did here. I was tempted, thinking it would be easier to roll out. But the extra flour made it SOOOO much harder to roll out the piece.
Once your rolls are all rolled out, it's time to invoke the special 'rolling off the fork technique' that I learned from Judy. But I forgot out how to do that. So I just did it the simpler way and chopped them up with my dough scraper.
Just another camera angle so you can see I'm cutting them up at an angle.
The gnocchi sink when you first plunk them into the water. As soon as they begin to rise (like these four did), you can scoop them out of the water. It only takes a minute or two for them to cook.
My lovely cooked gnocchi, ready to plunk into cream sauce. Or spaghetti sauce. Or pesto. Or whatever your heart's desire!!!
This is my favorite way to serve the gnocchi:
Enjoy!!
* * * * *
I not only bake and cook, I write murder mysteries too!
Both books are available in paperback and kindle versions
Diamonds for Diamond
(Book 1 in the Jack Diamond Mystery series)
and
No One Noticed
(Book 2 in the Jack Diamond Mystery Series)
Diamonds for Diamond
(Book 1 in the Jack Diamond Mystery series)
and
No One Noticed
(Book 2 in the Jack Diamond Mystery Series)
* * * * *
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