I wish I had learned this a long time ago when I attempted to make my Grammy Filomena’s gnocchi and it was a disaster. Bake the potatoes, don’t boil them. Water is the enemy of good gnocchi, and you can spend HOURS (as I did) trying to get the moisture out of the dough. That created gnocchi that were equivalent to little bricks rather than pillows.
The secret to the lightest, most tender potato gnocchi is to bake the potatoes instead of boiling them. A baked potato is drier than a boiled potato, which means you won’t need to add more flour to the dough to account for excess moisture, which can lead to over-kneaded, tough gnocchi.
If you want real Italian gnocchi, look for imported Italian flour marked "00 tenero," which is milled from soft wheat with a low protein content — and a key ingredient to your Italian pantry. High protein wheat flour makes chewy, hard gnocchi. You can find Anna 00 flour in most grocery stores or order it on Amazon.
You'll need about one cup of flour for every pound of riced potato — more if the potatoes are very young, or if it's quite humid out.
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Baked Potato Gnocchi
8
servings1
hour30
minutes20
minutesIngredients
2 pounds 2 (about 4) baking potatoes, such as Russet
1 teaspoon 1 salt
2 2 egg yolks
1 1/2 cups 1 1/2 00 flour (plus extra for dusting)
Directions
- Pierce the potatoes several times, so that moisture can escape during baking.
- Bake the potatoes in a preheated 400°F oven for one hour until fork-tender.
- Peel the potatoes while they are still hot, and press them through a potato ricer.
- Put the potatoes in a large bowl with salt and eggs. Add the flour a little at a time and mix with your hands until the mixture forms a rough dough. Do not overwork the dough.
- Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface.
- Gently knead the dough for 1 or 2 minutes until smooth, adding a little bit more flour, if necessary, to keep it from sticking. (The dough will still be sticky when you roll it out, so add more flour in, because you can't take it out.)
- Dust the cutting board with flour, then cut off a piece of the dough and roll it back and forth into a rope, about the thickness of your index finger.
- Using a bench scraper or knife, cut the rope into 1-inch pieces. Toss in a little flour, then place on a baking pan lined with parchment paper. Top with a little flour before you start a new layer of parchment paper and gnocchi.
- Boil the gnocchi in batches in plenty of salted water. The gnocchi are done about 2 minutes after they float to the surface, remove with a slotted spoon, and serve with your favorite sauce.
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