I have tried making gnocchi a few times. I follow the recipes (of which I have tried a few) exactly, and everything goes OK until I try to cook them. Then it all turns to mush. Help. I am at a loss.
Debbie, Glasgow
Don’t beat yourself up, Debbie – this has been troubling folk for centuries. In the Italian cooking bible Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well, published in 1891, author Pellegrino Artusi tells of a woman whose gnocchi disappear in the pot she is boiling them in (she hadn’t used enough flour to hold them together). So, you’re not alone.
The gnocchi family is a large and varied one. You can incorporate pretty much anything into these dumpling shapes – ricotta, vegetables, polenta, chestnuts – but let’s focus on the classic potato gnocchi. First, it’s all about the potato. As Feast’s Italian correspondent, Rachel Roddy, puts it: “If I can’t find the right potato, I don’t make gnocchi.” However, the road to identifying said spud is not a straightforward one: it depends on who you ask, with chefs and cookbooks offering contradictory advice. “It’s so confusing,” Roddy says. “For me, it’s got to be an everyday potato; I use a slightly waxy, red one.”
Emiko Davies, a Florence-based food writer and author of Tortellini at Midnight, opts for ones that make a good mash and have a lower water content: Dutch cream, King Edward or Idaho Russet Burbank. “In Italy, it’s common to see recipes asking for ‘old’ potatoes rather than a variety, but it’s a good idea to go for a starchy one,” she says. Stumble at this hurdle, Davies warns, and you’ll have a wet mixture on your hands, which will either fall apart in the pot or need large amounts of flour to bind. Meanwhile, Masha Rener, head chef at Italian deli and restaurant Lina Stores in London’s Soho, prefers Desiree potatoes: “They have a firmer texture and are more floury than starchy, meaning there’s less chance of the gnocchi becoming mushy.”
Potatoes secured, they should then be boiled whole, skin on, and “not too hard”, according to Roddy. Resist the urge to puncture the skin too often to see if they’re done, as this can lead to waterlogging. When cool enough to handle, scrape off the skins and push the potato through a ricer or food mill, then, while still warm, start working your dough on a floured work surface. (Here, Davies offers up another tip to fight the mush: “Spread out the mash to cool; the escaping steam will further take away any moisture.”)
Flour is the binder, but use as little as possible. As Anna del Conte writes in The Classic Food of Northern Italy, “the best gnocchi makers manage to use only 100g flour to 1kg potatoes”. While that may be a step too far for us mere mortals, Roddy takes a more pragmatic approach: “Add as much as feels right – you’ll be able to see if the dough isn’t holding together.”
Eggs are another contentious issue, considered sacrilege by some and a binder by others. Roddy often “puts one in for good measure”, but whichever way you go, the aim of the game is a smooth, not sticky dough. If you go egg-free, avoid a rollicking boil and rescue them as soon as they pop to the surface.
Finally, should your gnocchi do another disappearing act, you could always say, as one character in Artusi’s story does, that a sprite stole them.
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