Well, hopefully you saw my last post about my love for simplicity, but it doesn’t get more simple than this..

This post is me making gnocchi..

& this is all you need to make gnocchi..

• A fork
• A couple of potatoes
• An egg
• Some flour
• Sprinkle of salt

First, you need to cook the potatoes. The best way is to prick them with your trusty fork, wrap them in foil & roast them. Boiling them fills them with too much water.

Once cooked you need to make potato-fluff. A masher isn’t recommended, it’s the wrong consistency. Some people say to use a potato-ricer but seriously just grab your fork & scrape out the potato-skins. It aerates instead of squishing. You are after-all wanting fluffy gnocchi, not mushy.

Put your potato in a bowl, throw in your egg & salt & fluff it up with your fork. Try to do this while the potato is still warm but not hot enough to cook the egg, if the potato is cold it won’t work either though.

Once the egg & salt is mixed through start mixing in a bit of flour & then throw the pile on your counter with some more flour.

Keep kneading it with more flour until it starts looking like a soft dough. I’m not giving any quantities as it depends on the weather, egg size, potato size etc. Just keep adding more flour until it feels right.

Roll it into a snake & then slice it into little pillows (just like the Orecchiette I made a couple of weeks ago, but softer pillows this time)

Here comes the fun bit that takes a bit of practice. Grab your trusty fork again (& one of his mates), put the pillow in between & do a rolling motion, dragging the top fork away.

The grooves aren’t totally necessary but they do hold sauce nicely & feel nice on your tongue. Plus, they’re pretty huh?

Get some water boiling & make a sauce of your liking. I went with a basic asparagus napolitana.

Gnocchi is referred to as “smart pasta”, meaning it knows when it’s cooked & tells you. You really can’t screw it up. When the water is boiling throw in some gnocchi (you may want to do it in small batches if you have a small pot like me). The gnocchi sinks to the bottom when first thrown in & rises to the top when it’s done. So wait for them to bounce up & tell you when they’re done.

Scoop them out of the water & toss them into your sauce. Ta-da! Gnocchi!

Yeh bad photo, but tasted great.