No to Gnocchi!!

Dennis and I got it into our heads that we would like to master the art of making Gnocchi. Dennis is a big fan of gnocchi and would love to be able to produce this bite size potato dumplings in our own kitchen. I, on the contrary, never had a good one. My last and probably only experience of gnocchi was so off putting I avoided them in general. They were basically dense little pellets of potatoes. So, I was keen to achieve what the real thing is supposed to be like - delightful and delicate. It would be a fun and exciting adventure - we've never done it before and it is sufficiently challenging to make the reward extra sweet if done right. After all, gnocchi making has been described as "not for the faint of heart."

We followed Batali's recipe of 3 lbs of Russet Potatoes, 2 cups of flour, 1 extra large egg and 1 tsp Kosher salt. Following his instructions, we boiled the potatoes for 45 minutes or so and then peeled and mashed then. (He called for a Vegetable Mill, but we did it with a fork on a chopping board, as suggested by another cook book author). We piled the mess of potatoes all together into a mound and sprinkled the flour all over the potatoes. Then, we made a little well in the little potato and flour mountain, and cracked the egg into it. We incorporated the egg (with the salt) using a fork, as instructed. It looked promising till I got to the kneading part of the process. The mess was moist and tacky and not amendable to kneading at all. I wasn't sure if that's just how it is supposed to be. I finally decided it cannot possibly be that tacky and added more flour, even though I was resistant to the idea as I read that too much flour results in dense and rubbery gnocchi. Perhaps the potatoes took in a lot more water that expected.

Anyhow, we finally got the mess into a consistency that seemed right - light and billowy. I little moist still, but I decided not to add any more flour. We cut the dough into 6 parts - as the recipe called for - and rolled each into a rope no thicker than our thumbs. We then cut them into these little pieces and rolled them over the tines of a fork. The little pieces looked rather good after a few rounds of practice.

It's too bad that they looked so much better than they tasted. We are not sure where we went wrong. Was it that I added too much flour? Did I mashed the potatoes too well or not well enough? Or, might it be that we didn't boil the little nuggets long enough? Batali says they are ready when they float to the surface, about one minute.

I tried boiling the second batch longer, but they all have the nasty, doughy taste. At that point, we decided to throw the rest of the unformed gnocchi dough out and boil some pasta to go with the basic tomato sauce we have made to go with the gnocchi. We were a little disappointed. But we had a good laugh about it. Dennis even quipped, "No to Gnocchi!"