I would really love to tell you all this amazing story about how I successfully recreated a homemade gnocchi recipe over the weekend. Unfortunately, this kitchen experience was slightly tragic, anxiety ridden and only mildly delicious.
I attended a group cooking class with Franca Mazza many years ago where homemade gnocchi were on the menu. Although Franca was amazing, detailed and patient, I admit that I must not have written down the recipe properly as I am sure that I missed a few important steps. I did try to divide the recipe (to make it 6 portions instead of 12), but I don’t think that this is why the recipe didn’t turn out. My recreation this weekend left me with dough that was way too soft, despite the amount of flour I added which made it very difficult to form anything resembling a picture-perfect gnocchi.
Let’s take a photo journey to see how things progressed.
Here is the original hand-written recipe I jotted down during the workshop (please excuse the misspelled words as I wasn’t paying super close attention and was trying to write everything down as quickly as possible).
So I “screwed up” essentially at step one. I figured, meh, why not just use the yellow potatoes I already have instead of going out to buy russet potatoes? I don’t think this was the whole reason my recipe failed but perhaps russets hold less water? Perhaps they’re essential to an awesome tasting gnocchi? Who knows. Regardless, I picked out 6 yellow potatoes, washed them, found a big pot, added water and salt, and set them to boil.
While I waited for my potatoes to boil, about 45-50 minutes, I decided to prep my work station and start separating my egg whites and egg yolks.
Once my potatoes were sufficiently boiled, I needed to play a little hot potato and peel them. They didn’t look super pretty.
It was at this point that I realized I was missing a crucial element. I don’t own a potato ricer! Thankfully, Franco’s aunt Lina lives on our street and came to my rescue. I sent the hubby over to pick up this essential piece to the puzzle while I poured myself a glass of wine to calm my already rising anxiety.
Now equipped with a ricer, I got to work flexing my muscles and squishing the potatoes through the little ricer holes. This was a lot of fun although I did feel kind of like a child squishing play-dough.
Once my potatoes were all riced, I dumped it out on my favourite large cutting board (thanks Kathy!) and molded it to have a hole in the middle to hold my six egg yolks. Things then got a little messy! After thoroughly washing my hands, I went ahead and hand-mixed my potato and egg mixture. It was then that I realized I forgot to remove my wedding ring. Big mistake! I needed to get my kitchen toothbrush out to clean the little nooks and crannies once I was done!
The next step is where I think I screwed up. My recipe called for ricotta to add flavouring (I researched other recipes afterwards and I didn’t find any that called for this, so this is what makes me think that this was the leading cause of my “wet” dough). Also, in very Diana-fashion, I didn’t really measure out a 1/2 cup of ricotta…which means I probably completely overestimated and added way too much. Ah well, you live and learn! Regardless, I went ahead and continued mixing despite the fact that my concoction was way too wet. I tried to make it pretty by shaping it into a heart…because that’s my natural reaction when I’ve screwed something up and want to avert attention!
I then proceeded with mixing in the flour. I started with the pre-measured required amount. And then I just took out my large flour container, plopped it next to me and start adding one cup at a time, trying to make the dough firmer.
It was at this point that my frustration started to rise because no matter how much flour I added, the dough still seemed too wet to form actual pasta! Of course, my wonderful husband thought this was the perfect time to snap a picture of me in action. I’m really trying to pass off the “cute house wife” look but you can probably sense the annoyance spewing from my eyes (“hurry up and take the damn picture lovie, before I throw this heap of misformed dough at you!!!”).
Once I was done adding at least 3 times the amount of flour called for, I figured it was time to try to form my gnocchi. I placed my dough in an aluminum bowl, cleaned off my cutting board and coated it in more flour to prevent sticking.
I then took a small amount of dough and started rolling it on the floured surface to make a long thin log-like shape. From there, I took a sharp knife to cut them into small pieces, approximately 1” in width.
This is where I pulled out my nonna’s fancy gnocchi block. Essentially, you’re supposed to lightly roll the dough on this piece of wood to give it the typical gnocchi lines. Unfortunately, my dough was so soft, I could barely make out ANY lines.
Andddddd this is the point where I lost my patience, poured myself another glass of wine and handed everything over to the hubby. The dough was so soft I was getting exponentially more annoyed as I attempted to continue with my process.
Luckily I married an angel/saint with incredible patience (I mean come on, he IS married to me so he has to be patient!) who took over the difficult task.
We came to the conclusion that trying to create those little gnocchi lines with the wooden tool was a complete waste of time, so we skipped that step entirely and simply continued cutting our gnocchi into tiny squares.
Our recipe, despite being cut in half, yielded so much that we ended up freezing most of the uncooked pasta.
So the true test after all of this trouble was the taste test. I whipped up a quick sauce and boiled our fresh gnocchi until they floated to the top of the water (the sign that they are cooked and ready to be removed from the water).
I was apprehensive with my first bite but honestly, they weren’t bad at ALL. That being said, they weren’t the best gnocchi either.
Although my homemade gnocchi recipe was slightly disastrous, I haven’t given up. I’ve been researching other recipes and watching a bunch of YouTube videos about how to make the yummiest gnocchi and promise to try it again one day. But not for a while. A long while.
If you have any great homemade pasta recipes, please don’t be shy to share them below or by emailing them to me directly!