Recipe for Gnocchi Revolution

Food Report for the 7th of December 2016.

Gnocchi Revolution : (for anyone who can’t decide if they want pasta or potatoes. HAVE BOTH)

Ingredients:
1 fresh potato (170g) / person
150g of non white all purpose flour / 4 persons
1 egg / 4 persons
A dash of salt

Note:  Gnocchi is really easy to make at home, but is very sticky, prepare more flour than recommended here so you can put some on your work station later on.

Making the Dough
Step MtD – 1 : Boil enough water so you can submerge all you potatoes in.

Step MtD – 2: Peal all your potatoes, cut them into pieces, and boil them. Try to cut all pieces of potatoes around the same size so they will be all be ready around the same time, the larger they are the longer they will take to be cooked in the middle.

Step MtD – 3 :With a fork, make some small holes on the pieces of potatoes, and let them boil until they are all tender.

Step MtD – 4 : While the potatoes are still warm, turn the pieces of potatoes into mash potatoes. You can use you imagination on this step on how to do it, but I will recommend a potato-masher or a fork (the same you previously used to avoid doing more dish washing later on).
Any thing will work if you can mash them all out without leaving small bits of solid potatoes.

Step MtD – 5: Put the mash potatoes on your work station (hopefully it was clean before you read this) or in a mixing bowl and sprinkle with salt. Let the potatoes get close to room temperature. I suggest to use the work station for this step, it will give you more space for the following step to finish the dough, but the bowl will make less of a mess for now. No mater what you choose you will have to work on your work station eventually anyway.

Step MtD – 6 : Sprinkle the potatoes with the flour and add the egg(s). With your hand, delicately mix the floury potatoes to make a dough. Keep mixing the dough until it becomes flexible and smooth. Be careful here to not over mix the dough, it will make it elastic and we want to avoid this as much as possible (if you want to over mix a dough try the Udon noodle recipe). The dough could be very very sticky, if it is the case, add more flower.

Making the Gnocchi
Step MtG –  01 : Once the dough is ready, cut the dough in smaller pieces.

Step MtG – 02 : Take one of the pieces of dough, roll that piece of dough into a roll of 1 cm in diameter (half an inch for my American
friends)

Step MtG – 03 : With a knife cut the roll into a gnocchi with a length of 1 cm (still half an inch)

Step MtG – 04 : Sprinkle some flour all around the newly cut pieces.

Step MtG – 05 (optional) : If you feel fancy and adventurous you can roll the gnocchi on the teeth of a fork in a way that the gnocchi will have lines motif on it.

Step MtG – 06 (choices) : If you are to cook the gnocchi tonight skip this step and go to MtG – 8. To freeze the gnocchi, put the gnocchi on a plate and put them in the freezer. (fill the plate before you put it in the freezer)

Step MtG – 07 : Redo steps MtG – 2 to 6 until out of dough, or freezer space.

Step MtG – 08 : In a big casserole with boiling salted water, boil some gnocchi (not all of them at the same time) like a plate of them should be good. Once the gnocchi start to float count 2 minutes or until they are cooked.

Step MtG – 09 : Once the gnocchi are cooked, use a strainer to remove the water from the cooked gnocchi

Step MtG – 10 : Serve and enjoy with pesto sauce, or tomatoes and oregano sauce.
”
This meal was enjoyed by the whole crew on thanksgiving dinner. It was a side that could easily be main course. I wanted to do gnocchi for a long time and now it is done, and you could do the same.

This meal is best serve with tightly knit group of friends, as tightly as the gnocchi in the pan, that share common goal like slaying dragons, saving the world or just eating together.

As always please try this at home. Very little supervision is required to make and to eat. Please enjoy.

Claude-Michel Laroche
Mars 160 – Crew Engineer