Recipe: Basic potato gnocchi

Keys hung up, briefcase down. Jacket off, apron on. Standing in stiletto’s all day in conferences has worked my feet and now it’s time to work my hands making pasta (and maybe later I’ll work them some more. ) There’s something about making pasta...  getting your hands all dirty, the rubbing and massaging the dough, and enveloping your fingers in this moist and warm cocoon. With pasta, it’s all about the touchy-feely.

Recipe from Jamie Oliver (Cook with Jamie)

Ingredients

6 medium potatoes

Olive oil

½ a nutmeg, grated

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 large free-range or organic egg yolk

1-2 handfuls of plain flour

Semolina flour

Method

·         Top tip: Gnocchi is my favourite pasta. Not only for the way it tastes and feels in my mouth, but there’s something in its aesthetics. Gnocchi is oval shaped balls – and in this case we don’t like our balls too big. Small to medium sized balls in the mouth is what we’re looking for here.

1.        Preheat the oven to 220 degrees.

2.       Rub your potatoes with olive oil, stroking them. Make sure they are all lubricated up. Everything needs a good forking, so prick each potato with a fork. The harder the prick, the more it penetrates the potato. Lay them onto a roasting tray, positioning them so that they are not on top of one another. Place in the preheated oven and bake for one hour until the potatoes are fluffy on the inside and crispy on the outside.

3.       Allow to cool and then cut the potatoes into half and carefully scoop the flesh out of the skins. Pound the naked flesh and then place the mashed mixture into a bowl.

4.       Add the nutmeg, salt,  pepper, egg yolk and enough of the flour to bind your mixture. Mix together and then knead with your hands until you have a dry, doughy consistency. This is where it’s time to get skillful with your hands. Give the dough a firm slap, then stretch the dough using both hands and fold over. Do this over and over again... faster and faster. Somethings aren’t meant to be loose, but in this case the looser and stringier the dough, the better.

5.       Add a little water if you feel it’s too dry, or a little more flour if it’s too wet.

6.       Once you have your gnocchi dough, divide it into 3 pieces and roll each piece out on a floured surface into long tubes the thickness of a sausage. We’re looking for a perfectly sized tube here – not too big, not too small. Cut each of the tubes into 2.5cm pieces and roll into a oval. Place them on a bed of semolina flour on a tray and put in the fridge for 10 to 20 minutes to set.  

7.       Then boil. You’ll know when they are ready when the gnocchi floats to the top of the water.

8.       Then add your preferred sauce or topping and enjoy.