Waste My Time

Last Friday I spent the day over my Nonna’s learning how to make Gnocchi.
I present a somewhat step by step instructional photo post.

I should caution that I don’t have an exact recipe, so the measurements are obviously not exact or proper in any way. If you do decide to attempt this, please don’t blame me if it does not turn out, but let me know how it does.

To Make Gnocchi
Peel and boil several potatoes [we used about 6 large potatoes for this batch]
Then mash the potatoes using a masher. Then let the potatoes cool to room temperature. [at least for an hr or so]

In a bowl crack 1 egg and add a little spoon of oil and some grated cheese. Then mix together. Add in a little salt if you choose.

Then pour the mixture into the potatoes and mix with a masher for a few mins. Then continue by hand making sure that it’s all mixed up and mashed properly.

Add Flour and mix again [this is 3 cups of flour - we add half a cup at a time till the mixture is no longer sticky]

Dump potatoes onto a cutting board sprinkled with lots of flour and kneed like you would dough.

Once you’ve kneaded the potatoes into a giant ball cut it into smaller manageable balls and using your fingers roll and pull the potato into a semi thin line.

Make sure to use as much flour as you need or else the potato will get sticky and become hard to work with.

My Nonna always sprinkles the thin line of potato with four once she’s done rolling it.

Then line up 2-4 thin lines and cut into inch section.
[You can cut each line individually; I just find it takes way to long that way]

Once you’ve cut the potato line into pieces, again sprinkle with a little bit of flour [This will prevent them from sticking to each other] and place on a flour covered cooking sheet.

TADA! you’ve successfully made Gnocchi!

Now some recipes will tell you to roll the potato over a folk to get a design. I asked my Nonna to show me how to do this so she did, but in all the years that I’ve been eating her cooking she has never does this. It takes way to much time, not to mention a lot of practice to get them looking right.

So once the cooking sheet is filled, you stick it in the freezer.
Half an hr later remove the cooking sheet and using a pancake flipper mix up the potato pieces. This prevents them from sticking to the sheet.
Pop them back in the freezer for another half an hr.
Then package them into large freezer zip lock bags. Make sure that you do not scoop up the excess flour that’s on the cooking sheet when packaging them into the bags.

To Cook Gnocchi
It’s very simple to cook.

Bring a pot of water to a boil
Add salt
Lower temp to about 5/6
Add in Gnocchi [I only do about 15-20 pieces at a time]
When Gnocchi floats to the top of the water, remove.
[If you leave them in longer they will get too mushy and fall apart]

Garnish with red sauce or how I prefer it; a little bit of butter and grated cheese.

YUM!