gnocchi-ing on heavens door

Posted: 3/03/2010 7:46:45 a.m.

This lead onto my discovery over the last few years, that these small dumplings seem a challenge for many to achieve. The potato based gnocchi italienne either appears as little chewy bullets or disintegrating splodges of pasty mess bundled up in a thick gooey cheesy sauce. However, once mastered, these little pillows of sublimeness with a coated thin sauce or a nut brown herb butter and freshly grated pecorino cheese is heaven. The secret is to search for starchy potatoes, wash the skin, prick with a fork and bake in the oven, cool, peel and press through a sieve or food mill. Try to stay away from steaming or boiling the potatoes, thus controlling the amount of moisture added to the potato. More the water content, the more flour is needed, the heavier the gnocchi will become. Work with potatoes when they are still warm, don’t over knead and a wooden butter board is fantastic for giving them the classic torpedo shape with indented lines and the dimple that catches a whisper of divine sauce. Although these potato dumplings have had the media lime light there have been other wonderful gnocchi’s shared as far back as the Roman times. Gnocchi Romaine is the stress free dumpling made by simmering milk infused with a bay leaf, whisking in semolina, eggs and parmesan, poured into a buttered tray, levelled and left to set firm. The slab is turned out and cut with a 5cm cookie cutter, the discs of gnocchi placed into greased gratin dishes coated with fresh tomato sauce and sprinkled over with parmesan and gratinated. The French too have Gnocchi Parisienne, a savoury choux paste made from whisking flour into boiling water, beating in two eggs at a time and finishing with gruyere cheese and herbs. This dough is then placed into a snaplock bag to rest, using a stapler to double seal the bag. Cut the corner of the bag to create a homemade piping bag and with kitchen scissors, cut 2cm lengths into a saucepan of simmering water. When they float to the surface, scoop them out into an iced cold bowl of water, pat dry and freeze them for later use with prawns, pinenuts, sage butter and fried capers. My favourite gnocchi made with ricotta cheese, fresh breadcrumbs and parmesan are especially nice, tucked into bed with seared chicken livers, a fresh tomato, olive oil and herb salsa. The Italian’s may call these lumps but they are some of the sexiest food ingredients I have encountered, just master the technique and you will fall in love!

Click here to view the recipes on foodie from my column every sunday in savour, herald on sunday. This weekend its all about slices, the yanks call them squares . . .