Prepare the gnocchi it is really very simple and the ingredients are only three: flour, eggs and potatoes, plus a pinch of salt that you can however omit and add only in the dressing.
Let's see immediately how to proceed for the classic recipe.
Ingredients
1 kg of potatoes
300 g of flour 0
1 egg
salt
Method
The first thing to do is to boil the potatoes.
Wash them well and then put them, whole and with the peel, in a pot full of water.
Turn on the heat and bring to a boil, then calculate about 15 minutes of cooking, but even less if the potatoes are small.
Prick them with a fork and if they are soft drain them.
Cut them into pieces and mash them with the potato masher while they are still hot.
The peel will come off and only the pulp will remain.
Mix it with the flour and the beaten egg and once you have a smooth and uniform dough, let it rest for half an hour wrapped in plastic wrap.
If the dough turns out to be too sticky add more flour, but little else the gnocchi will become very hard in cooking.
Make snakes with the dough and then cut them into pieces as large as a hazelnut.
At this point the gnocchi are ready to be dipped in salted boiling water.
As soon as they rise to the surface, drain them with a slotted spoon and season with a tomato sauce or in a pan with butter and sage.
Dumplings without eggs
Yes, dumplings can also be made without eggs, just add more flour.
The procedure is the same and the cooking also.
Change the texture slightly, which will be slightly harder.
You can make them colorful by adding turmeric to the dough.
Ingredients
1 kg of potatoes
350-400 g of flour
salt
Gluten-free dumplings
The gluten-free gnocchi can be prepared with a glute-free flour suitable for this type of dough or with rice flour.
The consistency is slightly different and the gnocchi will be softer and lighter, but the taste is almost identical.
Be careful not to overcook them though, because they fall apart quickly.
Ingredients
1 kg of potatoes
400 g of rice flour
3 eggs
salt
Ricotta Gnocchi
You can make gnocchi even without potatoes and we offer you the recipe of the famous ones Gnudi, that is ricotta and spinach gnocchi.
They are very tasty and delicate and above all beautiful to look at because they are bright green in color.
Ingredients
100 g of fresh spinach
200 g of cottage cheese
125 g of flour + the one needed for the pastry board
1 egg
Method
Wash the spinach and cook for a few minutes while still wet in a non-stick pan closed with the lid.
Let them cool and squeeze them well.
Chop them with ricotta, egg and parmesan in a blender and then pour everything into a bowl and add the flour.
Knead with your hands adding more flour if necessary.
On a pastry board, form many snakes with the dough and cut them into small pieces.
Let the dumplings rest for about 30 minutes on the pastry board and then cook them in salted boiling water until they come back to the surface.
You can leave the dough very soft and throw it in water with a spoon, or you can make compact dumplings.
In the first case, season only with melted butter and plenty of Parmesan cheese by polishing them in a pan.
Cauliflower dumplings
As we have seen, you can make gnocchi with vegetables and in addition to spinach we suggest you try the version with cauliflower.
Someone prepares them with raw cauliflowers simply blended and then mixed with water and flour, but we prefer the cooked version which is what we present to you.
Ingredients
500 g of raw cauliflower
500 g of 00 flour
1 egg
salt
Method
Wash the cauliflower, cut it into pieces and cook it in boiling water until it becomes soft.
Once drained, mash it with a potato masher or a fork and mix it with the flour and the egg.
Make a loaf and let it rest in the refrigerator.
Once the gnocchi are obtained, cook them like potatoes and then season them with a simple vegetable cork or a light pesto.
Colored dumplings
We have already said that the dumplings can be colored with turmeric to turn yellow or with paprika to turn red, but you can add very colorful vegetables to the dough to make them really beautiful to serve.
Blended red turnips, for example, make them pink and carrot orange.
Try them and you will make your children happy especially.
How to give dumplings a good shape
If you have never done them before, we suggest you to make simple balls, the so-called Potatoes.
To adjust you with the dimensions considered that they must not be too large, but not invisible.
A hazelnut is the right unit of measure, a nut is too much!
If, on the other hand, you want to try your hand at preparing beautiful dumplings to look at, then once you have cut the snakes into pieces, scratch them with the teeth of a fork or with a little finger, dig them in the center to create a sort of dimple that will collect all the seasoning.
However, if we can reveal a secret to you, it is more important that they are good than beautiful!
How do you pronounce "gnocchi"?
It seems easy to say gnocchi, but in fact it is not.
Let's start by dividing the word dumplings into several parts.
GN in Italian is read as NI, but pressing the tongue more on the palate.
EYES instead reads as OK but only with a final E which is pronounced in English I. So imagine saying Oke.
Now join NI + O + OKE and try to pronounce GNOCCHI!
Mission accomplished!
Maybe it wasn't that difficult indeed.