Gnocchi In No Time

The new year has begun and, for some of us, it’s time to get out of the rut of the meals we make week in and week out.  Some repetition is good and some special meals feel like comfort food. But some dinners we make are the result of just not being able to come up with anything new.

Your Two Chums want to help you get out of your dinner rut and have some fun doing it 🙂  A couple of weeks ago on the way home from running some errands, my two oldest grandchildren, Jeremy, who is 9 years old and his sister, Sadie who is 7, asked if we could have gnocchi for dinner.  And they wondered if  we could make it ourselves.

If you aren’t familiar with gnocchi (pronounced no-key), it is an Italian pasta much like little dumblings.  I had never made them from scratch but since we had some time before we needed to have dinner ready, and Jeremy and Sadie love to help out in the kitchen, I decided we would have a “culinary adventure” and make our own gnocchi for dinner.  Jeremy and Sadie know me well and know that I am usually up for any sort of kitchen adventure.  We read several of my Italian cookbooks and then googled “making gnocchi” to see some You Tube videos of people who had made gnocchi and could offer some instruction.  Taking all the advice we had either read or seen on line and compiling it, we set out to see what we could come up with ourselves.

In the desire for honesty and candor I need to tell you we didn’t love our first attempt.  The ratio of flour to potato was off.  Jeremy thought it was  just”OK” but Sadie said, the gnocchi tasted like pasty mashed potatoes with sauce on it. (Sadie is always very honest in her assessments, a quality I really appreciate.)  So we tried again, and this time we got it right.  Both attempts though, were fun and easy enough for a 9 and 7 year old to do themselves.  If you are in need of a win/win activity for a rainy day day or a vacation day that gives your children something productive to do and results in dinner for your family, this is a great idea!  I talked them through the steps of what they needed to do and they followed my lead and I think felt very satisfied with themselves and proud of their accomplishment when we were done.

Their “Lolli” was certainly proud of them….but then I am always proud of them no matter what 🙂

Homemade Gnocchi
(4 servings as a main course or 6 servings as a side dish)

2 medium potatoes
1 1/2 cups semolina flour  (or all purpose flour)
1 egg

Wash potatoes. Chop potatoes into quarters.  Boil in salted water.  Allow to cool until they are easy to handle and remove skin.     

Put potatoes through a ricer if you have one or just mash with a potato masher.  Add egg.  Then add semolina* or all purpose flour.

Mix in mixer until flour and egg are well incorporated into potato.   Turn out dough onto a floured surface and form into a ball.  Cut ball into quarters.  Then roll each quarter into long strips like “snakes”.  Any child who has ever played with play dough will be an expert at this step.  Cut the strips into 1″ chunks.

Using a gnocchi board (you can buy these at Williams- Sonoma for very little) or the back side of a fork, roll the chunks of dough to form ridges.  You can also skip this step if you want to, as the ridges are there primarily to help catch and hold the sauce on each piece of pasta.

You can place the pasta pieces on floured waxed paper on a cookie sheet and freeze the pasta at this point.  When they are frozen, simply place them into a freezer bag.  That way they won’t clump together and you can take out as much as you want when you are ready to cook it.

If you are cooking the gnocchi right away, simply slip it into some salted boiling water in batches and cook until the dumplings rise to the top of the water.  Then remove from water and drain. Cook the next batch.

Add sauce and serve.  We used a simple browned butter sauce for Sadie’s pasta.  Jeremy’s had an Alfredo sauce of melted butter, parmesan cheese and enough half and half to make it a creamy consistency with a dash of nutmeg added.  Both were topped with more parmesan cheese.  You, of course, can use any pasta sauce that suits you. They are delicious with marinara sauce or with a pesto sauce.  Gnocchi can be served with a salad and bread as a main course or it is a wonderful side dish as an alternative to potatoes or rice.

*Semolina is the coarse, purified wheat middlings of durum wheat used in making pasta, breakfast cereals, puddings, and couscous. (Wikipedia)

Semolina flour can be found at many chain grocery stores in the baking aisle along with the other flours or sometimes in a section with pasta if there is a designated Italian section of the market.  It can also be found at any Italian market or specialty store.