Last night, after salivating over a photo and recipe in the Good Living I was reading as I waited for my drama students to turn up, I tried my hand for the first time at gnocchi. Success! For some reason, even though I can rarely resist it when at a Chef’s Hatted restaurant, I have never tried to recreate the deliciousness at home. Times have changed!
Take a kilo or so of potatoes (this will do about four small servings) and boil them with skin on.
When boiled, peel and put through a potato ricer, then simply mix in about 250g of flour. You want the dough to be smooth and stretchy.
After bringing it together, let the dough rest under a clean tea towel for about 15 minutes. After resting, roll into logs and cut into little parcels.
Boil until it rises to the top of the water, drain and blanch in ice water. The gnocchi can be refrigerated for future use at this stage.
Next, heat some olive oil in a pan and fry the gnocchi adding some butter as you go. When it turns a lovely golden brown colour, turn off the heat and serve.
You can add whatever you like to the gnocchi. I simply fried it in butter and threw in a bunch of ripped sage leaves. Sumptuous, as Sally can attest to (recipient of my first ever gnocchi).
Pair gnocchi with a red of some sort. I matched it with a Wolf Blass Silver Label 2009 Cabernet Merlot.
