Potato gnocchi are a basic preparation of Italian cuisine: seasoned with a tomato sauce, baked in the oven with cheese or flavored with butter and sage, gnocchi are always good! Preparing them is really simple: potatoes, flour, a little manual skill and you're done. To have perfect gnocchi, however, we must be careful not to make any mistakes.
Flour: how much?
Potato gnocchi need flour and potatoes: but what is the right proportion? If you overdo it with flour, your gnocchi will be too hard, if you put too little they will break during cooking. The rule says that the flour must be at most a third of the amount of potatoes.
Flour: when?
As in all recipes, also in the case of gnocchi, the timing is important: before adding the flour to the potatoes, make sure that they are not hot but warm. When the potatoes are hot, in fact they absorb the flour more easily and this factor could deceive you making you exaggerate with the quantities.
What potatoes to use?
To prepare good and well-cooked gnocchi, use white-fleshed potatoes which must be old: they are the most floury and with a greater quantity of starch and these elements make them the best for this preparation.
Cook the potatoes
The potatoes must be boiled before adding them to the flour, also in this case the recipe has its tips: dip the potatoes in cold water and put them on the stove, start counting time only when the water has started to boil. Your potatoes will have to boil for 25/30 minutes but to be really safe use a knife: if it crosses the potatoes from side to side then they are ready!
The peel
The potatoes will have to boil in their skins: do not peel them first. In this way they will absorb less water and your gnocchi will keep cooking better.
Knead yes, but how much?
Be careful not to overwork your dough thus running the risk that the gluten present in the flour will activate and your gnocchi will not cook well.
Eggs? No thanks.
Egg is a very thickening ingredient and often used in preparations, in this case however it is not necessary to add it to the other ingredients, if the proportions between flour and potatoes are right, the dough will already be sufficiently compact and soft at the same time.
When do I cook them?
To prepare perfect gnocchi, the tip is to cook them freshly prepared without letting too much time pass, otherwise the advice is to place them on a well floured and spaced wooden surface, covered with a cotton cloth.
Let’s always do a test
To be really sure that your gnocchi cook well without breaking into the water, first try a couple of gnocchi. If they keep cooking then your dough is perfect, if instead they break then add some flour to the dough.
Careful with the pan
To prevent the gnocchi from breaking when you add them to the sauce in a pan, turn them over a low heat and slowly with a wooden spoon, in this way they will absorb the flavor without breaking or sticking together.
Try not to knead it as kneading will develop the gluten and make your gnocchi chewy. Keep some flour in a cup for dusting the board and your hands as you work to stop the dough sticking. Cut your dough into 6 pieces and roll them each into fat ropes about as thick as your thumb.
Try not to knead it as kneading will develop the gluten and make your gnocchi chewy. Keep some flour in a cup for dusting the board and your hands as you work to stop the dough sticking. Cut your dough into 6 pieces and roll them each into fat ropes about as thick as your thumb.
Flour: This will 'make or break' your gnocchi. Too much and the gnocchi will be chewy with a rubbery consistency. Too little and the gnocchi will not come together and will fall apart when boiled. So start with 3/4 of the recommended flour and once it's all mixed in, slowly incorporate more (bit by bit).
The secret to the lightest, most tender potato gnocchi is to bake the potatoes instead of boiling them. A baked potato is dryer than one that has been boiled, which means you avoid having to add more flour to the dough to account for excess moisture, a practice that leads to over-kneaded, tough gnocchi.
Memorie di Angelina states that it is important to watch your ratio of flour to potatoes. The site calls for a quarter of the amount of flour to potatoes. Any more flour would overpower the soft starches of the potato and make your gnocchi dense. You can also knead it too vigorously and end up with dense, chewy pieces.
Egg yolk added to your gnocchi dough helps improve texture, and keep it together while cooking. Gnocchi is traditionally made with eggs in Veneto and no eggs in Piedmont, the two Northern Italian regions famous for gnocchi. We vote for egg yolks at the rate of 1 per (500g) 1 lb of uncooked potatoes used.
It is very easy to add too much flour to gnocchi dough, which can make these dumplings glutinous, gummy, and sticky. If you dump all of the flour into your gnocchi dough at once, you won't have the same texture as a gnocchi that has just enough flour to bring it together.
Gently bring the dough together to form a cohesive ball. You do not need to “work” the dough (this is not pasta or bread dough). The texture should feel warm, light, fluffy and smooth, like a giant mashed potato ball. Cover and let rest for 10 minutes.
How to prepare gnocchi. Poach gnocchi in batches in a pan of lightly salted water for 2-4 minutes. Cooked gnocchi will float to the top. Strain and serve immediately with a good pasta sauce.
Chewy gnocchi are the result of too much flour and over kneading the dough. It's important to knead the dough just until it comes together into a smooth ball and no more. This is because you don't want to encourage too much gluten development which makes them tough, chewy and rubbery.
You need to do plenty of that for homemade pizza dough, but you don't want to do much kneading at all when making gnocchi. Italian type 00 flours like Caputo and Anna brands produce a great result. Make sure you're buying 00 labeled for pasta and not labeled for pizza making.
Italians have traditionally made gnocchi with the simplest ingredients: stale bread, different types of flour, different vegetables. Again, the word “gnocchi” simply refers to the shape of pasta. Gnocchi are just small pieces of dough boiled in water.
Unlike potato gnocchi, Roman gnocchi (Gnocchi alla romana), are made with semolina instead of potatoes and flour, that's why they are also called Semolina gnocchi. Roman gnocchi are shaped differently than potato gnocchi.
If the dough is too soft and floury, do not add more flour. More flour will transform your gnocchi dough into a cement brick! Instead, transfer your dough back onto the pastry board and continue to work the dough patiently until it dries out a little bit more.
If you overdo it with flour, your gnocchi will be too hard, if you put too little they will break during cooking. The rule says that the flour must be at most a third of the amount of potatoes.
Potatoes have a lot of starch and by mashing them instead of ricing them, it it is harder to incorporate all of the other ingredients without overmixing. Overmixing is another cause of tough gnocchi.
When cool enough to handle, scrape off the skins and push the potato through a ricer or food mill, then, while still warm, start working your dough on a floured work surface. (Here, Davies offers up another tip to fight the mush: “Spread out the mash to cool; the escaping steam will further take away any moisture.”)
Gently bring the dough together to form a cohesive ball. You do not need to “work” the dough (this is not pasta or bread dough). The texture should feel warm, light, fluffy and smooth, like a giant mashed potato ball. Cover and let rest for 10 minutes.
Because any added ingredient will add extra moisture to the dough you may have to add more flour and cheese to bind it together. The biggest takeaway from making any type of gnocchi dough is adding just enough flour for the dough to hold together and not too much more.
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