Gnocchi

Bake the Potatoes:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Wash and dry the potatoes, season them heavily with salt and then place on a sheet tray and roast for about 1 hour, or until you can poke the largest potato with a fork or knife and there is no resistance. If using a thermometer, you’re looking for around 205F degrees.

Once the potatoes are cooked, Cut them open and let them cool so they can be handled, but don’t let them completely cool, they need to be warm to make the dough.

Making The Gnocchi:

While still warm, scoop the potato out from the skins and into a ricer or food mill and rice the potatoes onto a cutting board or a bowl. Then whisk the egg and add straight on top of the potatoes. Then start to add most of the flour (you can sift the flour as well), a little at a time until the dough comes together, using the bench scraper to fold the dough onto itself, gently work the ingredients into the dough and gently knead the dough. We do not want to activate too much gluten in this dough, we want the gnocchi to be light delicate pillows, but not gummy and not too tough or heavy. Keep adding flour as needed until the dough is just slightly tacky but not sticky. If it’s sticky, work in more flour until it's not. And then just knead the dough very lightly, unlike a pasta dough where we are really beating up the dough to work the gluten. Once the dough comes together and is soft, supple and smooth we can form the gnocchi.

Cut off small pieces of the dough and start to roll into ropes, about the thickness of a thumb. Then cut the ropes into thumbnail sized portions, roll them into balls and then roll those balls along the surface of a fork to make ridges in the dough for sauce to latch on to. Then toss the shaped gnocchi with flour and set them aside on a tray.

They are ready to cook or you can store them in the fridge until you’re ready to use.