Homemade Gnocchi

I spent an entire day last week making an unreasonably large amount of fresh gnoochi. I would recommend only making this recipe if you have a few hours to spare and you have a mouli (a hand operated grater). I don't have a mouli and so I spent a very long time mashing up the potatoes, first with a potato masher and then with a fork to ensure no lumps - highly unrecommended process which is boring, slow and tiring.

I eventually made the gnoochi and froze majority of it. Don't do it! They freeze together and form a blob of gnoochi dough which have to be re-rolled and cut into shape again.

This recipe, however does make very light fluffy gnocchi, which are delicious. This recipe comes from Alex Herbert, the head chef and owner of Bird Cow Fish in New South Wales.

Potato Gnocchi

Ingredients
- 1.5kg desiree potatoes (pink skin with yellow flesh)
- 2 eggs
- 2 tbsp grated parmesan
- 125g plain flour
-salt and pepper

Method
1. Place unpeeled potatoes with cold water in a saucepan. Bring to the boil and then reduce the heat to medium and let the potatoes simmer for 30 minutes. (Use a skewer to check if they're cooked completely but avoid doing this too often so that the potatoes don't become water logged)

2. Take potatoes out of the water and wrap in a tea towel. Leave for 10 minutes for the potatoes to dry properly.

3. Peel potatoes (best way is cutting the potatoes in half and the skin should peel off very easily) and pass them through a mouli grater. Place the grated potatoes, eggs, salt, pepper and parmesan and mix gently. Sieve the flour into the bowl and gently fold. (I highly recommend sifting the flour as this aerates the flour and makes the gnocchi light and fluffy.




4. Flour a cutting board and place about 2-3 tablespoons of the mixture and roll out into a sausage shape with a thickness of about 1.5cm. Cut each sausage into 2cm pieces and roll in flour.

5. Cook the gnocchi in boiling salted water for 3 - 5 minutes.

I made a four cheese sauce to serve with the gnocchi however I didn't record the amounts but it was made from butter, milk, blue cheese, parmesan, tasty, Kraft cheddar cheese (best cheese for sauces as it melts into a homogenous mixture - thanks Nick), salt, pepper, oregano and cream.