I’m a pretty amateur cook, and probably lack quite a few basic skills in the kitchen! Thus when recipes say things like…’make a batch of shortcrust pastry’ or ‘make a hollandaise’ I’m off scampering to look for yet another book to tell me how to make these before I can move on! Out of this my How to…. series has been born – a series of posts covering some of those basics that I’ve never tried or struggle with, in my efforts to be a better cook! First up in the series was making tagliatelle and Next up is something I’ve been wanting to try out for ages – gnocchi. I eventually got a potato ricer for Christmas so have been giving this a good go over the last few weeks and this is the recipe that I have found works best after a bit of trial and error!
Makes enough to serve 4-6
Ingredients:
- 500g floury potatoes (e.g Maris Piper)
- 100g plain flour
- 1 whole egg
- 1 egg yolk
- salt and white pepper
Method:
- Boil the potatoes in the skins until soft, drain and leave to cool
- Peel, then push through a potato ricer or sieve, and beat in all the other ingredients, but do not overwork
- Leave in the fridge to rest for 20 minutes
- Shape in to balls the size of marbles, or roll into a cylinder shape and cut into about 1 inch pieces.
- Press each slightly with the prongs of a fork
- Cook in boiling salted water – they will rise to the top when ready
- Drain, then when ready to serve fry until lightly golden
- Serve with any sauce of your choosing or experiment by adding fresh herbs or spices to the mix before cooking.
Happy eating :)
