Gnocchi Served Four Ways

Peel the potatoes, place in a pot of boiling water and boil until just soft. Alternatively, you could bake the potatoes, which will require you to use less flour later in the recipe. Grate the cooked potatoes into a large bowl using the largest holes on a box grater. Add the salt and egg and mix well. Add the flour slowly, only adding as much as you need so that the dough will not stick to your hands.

Kneed the dough, as you would for bread, for 3 minutes on a lightly floured surface. Separate the dough into 6 smaller balls and roll out each ball into ropes about 3/4 inch thick. Cut each rope into 1 inch pieces. I’ve never been able to get the hang of putting the little groves on the gnocchi with the tines of a fork, but you can look up the technique online if you’d like to try it! Basically you just roll the 1 inch gnocchi pieces along the tines of a fork to imprint little groves.

Cook in a pot of well-salted boiling water. Continue cooking for approximately one minute after they rise to the top.

Four ways to serve the gnocchi:

1. Boil gnocchi and serve with a homemade tomato sauce.

2. Boil gnocchi and transfer to a saute pan and saute until golden brown adding homemade tomato sauce or sauteed veggies.

3. Mix cinnamon and nutmeg into the dough before boiling. Cut and cook gnocchi as directed above and saute in pan with a simple syrup to coat. This can be too sweet for some people so it’s best to serve this in small amounts!

4. Mix chopped Kalamata olives into the gnocchi before boiling. Boil gnocchi and saute with fresh spinach, walnuts and lemon juice with a splash of cream.