Melt-In-The-Mouth Gnocchi

Photo: Carmelita Caruana

Ingredients

1 part flour

5 parts uncooked old floury potato

extra flour for the board

nutmeg (optional)

Preparation

Place the washed but un-peeled potatoes in a pan with cold water and bring to the boil. Cook until a thin skewer inserted into a potato encounters no resistance. Drain then return the pan to the heat briefly to further dry out. Turn off the heat and leave potatoes in the pan.

Holding each potato in turn on a fork, peel rapidly so that the potatoes are still warm when you push them through the potato ricer. Allow to fall in a pile on a lightly floured wooden pastry board, then with your hands pat and shape the potatoes into a compact mound.

When the potatoes have cooled, sieve 2/3rd of the flour directly on top of them, add freshly grated nutmeg if using, and start to knead. Add more flour only if needed - if dough sticks to your hands or the board or doesn't form a knead-able dough - the less flour the lighter the end result.

When the dough feels both soft and compact, cut it into five or six pieces, flour your hands and the board and roll each piece out to form a long snake. Line up the rolled out snakes and cut at regular intervals into small even sized pieces.

Roll each piece into a ball in the palm of your hand then take a piece and press lightly on the back of a fork to create indentations. Roll off gently with the the tip of your thumb, curving the little gnocco back on itself up to form the cowrie shell hollow at the back. The indentations and the the hollow help to hold the sauce and keep the gnocchi light.

Bring a deep wide pan with several litres of well salted water to the boil, drop in the gnocchi in 3 or more or batches, and cook until they float to the surface, which takes a few minutes.

Drain each batch and place it on a layer of the sauce of your choice in a serving casserole adding more gnocchi and sauce in layers as you go. Avoid mixing as these light gnocchi are fragile, but if necessary cover and give the casserole a gentle shake or two to help gnocchi and sauce combine

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About

Adding egg yolk or eggs to the potato and flour mixture means the mixture becomes wet, so you need to add more flour. This can make the gnocchi heavy, tough and chewy. Without egg but using the right starchy potatoes kept dry as possible, the gnocchi are melt-in-the-mouth light, and they taste of potatao, not of flour. Use one part flour to every 5 parts potato (e.g. 100g flour for 500g potato)