Ever have one of those dinners where you really just went overboard on the potatoes? Okay... I have a bit of a potato disability that causes me to always make more than enough of whatever potato dish I am working on... and that surely includes mashed potatoes. Normally in my household, leftovers aren't a problem, however, mashed potatoes just are never as tasty the second time around. So what do you do other than waste? Well, today I chose to make gnocchi. Yes it seems a little daunting, but honestly, it is my absolute favorite way to use leftover mashed potatoes. It is a classic Italian dumpling and it is way easier and faster than any homemade 'pasta' I've seen!
Alright so dump the following ingredients into a large bowl:-2 cups smoothly mashed potatoes
-1/2 cup parmesan
-1/2 to 1 cup of flour (depending on how moist your potatoes are, your dough should still be sticky but very thick)
-1 tsp salt
-1/4 tsp pepper
-2 tsp dried rosemary
Mix it all well with your hands and then for my easy gnocchi making technique!**A quick note of the rosemary:
I use dried because it has a stronger flavor than fresh and I can't grow anything for the life of me... but if you have fresh, feel free! Also, it can be substituted if you have your own favorite herb (I also think thyme would be very nice...). The trick for this is just to not overload with a herbal mix (Herbes de Provence, Italian) or more than probably two spices. When that happens, I think the integrity of the individual spices is lost in simple dishes such as gnocchi. Remember, less is more! If you haven't experimented with single spice use, I really encourage you to do so! You might be surprised at how much wonderful flavor can come from a single spice.
So I've seen various chefs on FoodNetwork make gnocchi, and I've watched many of them roll the potato dumpling mixture into long logs and then nicely slice it up into small little potato squares... This is a fine method, but I find it tedious and completely unnecessary thanks to a wonderful sous chef on Iron Chef. I had made gnocchi before, and used the log method, which worked fine but it just took a lot of time. As I was watching Iron Chef one night, one of the sous chefs was making gnocchi and I saw him put the dumpling dough into a piping bag, squeeze it out and cut it into perfectly sized pieces over his boiling water. Now, this may not make for perfectly uniform shapes and sizes, but really, do we need that? Don't we want to keep the rustic feeling of gnocchi by making it a little rough around the edges? Of course! So, I took his technique and boy was I ever glad! This was much faster and easier, and hey, the gnocchi still looked amazing at the end:
So drop the gnocchi in boiling, well-salted (ocean!) water and once they float give them no more than 90 seconds before taking them out. Leaving them in too long will make them start to dissolve and fall apart which is obviously not good for eating, so take them out! Then lather on your favorite sauce (or these would even be good in browned butter or just a simple parmesan topping) and eat your beautifully and rustically made gnocchi!
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