Hand-made Gnocchi Recipe with Leek Butter Sauce (2024)

FAQs

What should you not do when making gnocchi? ›

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.

My Gnocchi Are Falling Apart When I Cook Them

This means there isn't enough flour and your dough is too wet.

There is no need to pre-cook the gnocchi. It'll cook in the sauce. The sauce is meant to be quite thick, but if you find it gets too dry before the gnocchi is cooked, add in another splash of chicken broth or wine.

Adding too much flour all at once

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.

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.

Some gnocchi recipes recommend floury potatoes instead, such as Idaho potatoes or Russet potatoes, but I don't always agree. They're too mealy. Tipo 00 Flour is a soft, fine milled flour from Italy. It's a must-have for light and tender gnocchi and homemade pasta.

Roll into ropes: Using your palms, roll out the dough into a rope about the thickness of your finger (¾-inch). Dry: Let the gnocchi air dry for 30 minutes. Cook the gnocchi: Spoon a small amount of sauce into your serving bowl.

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.

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. Gnocchi recipes often include potato or squash.

How to tell when gnocchi is done? ›

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.

How to make a firmer Gnocchi. Boil the potatoes with the peel on, that way the potato absorbs less water. Peel the potato and place through a potato ricer immediately, because the cooler they get the stickier they become. An easy way to peel the potato is stick a fork through and peel it using a knife.

To keep gnocchi from becoming mushy, be sure not to overcook them. After they rise to the surface (this should take about 2 minutes), cook them for 15 more seconds, or until tender.

A fresh gnocchi dough can be made 6 hours ahead of time and stored in the fridge. Any longer than that and the gnocchi will begin to turn an unpleasant grey colour and become softer in texture.

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.

Gently fold the flour into the potatoes until it's incorporated into the dough, being careful to not knead or overmix the dough, which will make your gnocchi tough or gummy.

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.”)

Gnocchi should only be reheated once. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) states you should always reheat food until it is steaming all the way through. You should also make sure that the gnocchi is appropriate to cook before reheating. If the gnocchi is mushy or sticky you should discard it straight away.