To prepare perfect Gnocchi it is important to follow five simple rules:
- The potatoes must be yellow-paste. Dutch potatoes are preferable because they require less flour and the gnocchi remain soft at the right point. Do not use too many eggs as they would make gnocchi hard and use soft wheat flour (the amount of flour depends on the quality of the potatoes). Salt should be carefully dosed to make the dough balanced.
- It would be useful to choose potatoes of the same size so as to ensure a homogeneous cooking. Once cooked, the potatoes must be mashed (avoid the vegetable mill … the potatoes would become sticky). Mix the potatoes with the flour only when they have become lukewarm otherwise, by absorbing more flour, gnocchi would become too hard.
- Cook gnocchi in salted water, boiling …. but drain gnocchi when they “come afloat”. Try to prevent cooked dumplings from collecting together.
- Use various seasonings. From classic tomato sauce to pesto. It would be interesting to serve them directly in individual dishes to avoid keeping them in the serving dish and breaking them.
- Gnocchi to be really good must be fresh. It is inadvisable to keep them even in the refrigerator over the day they were prepared because the dough could ferment.
