Potato Gnocchi Recipe

I have already written about gnocchi made with ricotta cheese. My sister, Christine, gave me that recipe. This is the potato gnocchi the way my nona (grandmother) made them. I got a lot of recipes from her, and I'm sorry I didn't sit and watch her make gnocchi. So I got a recipe from an old Italian cookbook from the Italian restaurant in Little Italy, New York, called Ferrara's.

I'm pretty sure the recipe is the same as my nona's recipe. So I made them and thought people should know there are two ways to make gnocchi.

My 11-year-old granddaughter, who is a fussy eater, loved these gnocchi. She even had two helpings. My husband is from an Italian family, but more specifically Sicily, and my mother-in-law wasn't familiar with the same foods that my family was familiar with, so he didn't grow up eating gnocchi, cappaletti, ravioli, and other dishes I thought were typical Italian dishes. But even he enjoyed eating these potato gnocchi.

So try these out and see which one you like best; the ricotta cheese or the potato gnocchi. I love both of them.

Mangiare Bene!

To freeze the gnocchi, place the cut dumplings on a floured cookie sheet keeping them separate and flash freeze them until they are frozen. Then place them frozen in a freezer bag and then store in the freezer, as shown below.

To cook, bring a pot of water to boil and add about a tablespoon of salt to the water. Place the frozen gnocchi in the water and stir very gently bring the water to a slower boil. Don't stir again until you see them pop to the top of the water then remove the popped up gnocchi with a slotted spoon and place in a bowl with your favorite sauce on the bottom of the bowl. Spoon them out as they pop up and layer them with sauce in between. Just enough sauce to cover them, not drown them.

If you cook them fresh, do it right after you make them and cook the same way being very gentle with them as they cook.

Leftover mashed potatoes will not work. Potatoes must be freshly cooked and slightly warm.

The exact amount of flour needed in this dish is difficult to gauge, it depends on the moisture of the potatoes. If you do use a bit more or less the recipe will still work. I noticed that if I erred on the side of less, the gnocchi were much lighter when eaten. A heavy gnocchi will not be easy to digest.

If you don't like meatballs and tomato sauce you can serve these with a light butter sauce and a little grating cheese. Still delicious!