Say No to Gnocchi

Recipe: Gnocchi with Gorgonzola Sauce

Source: The Best Ever Italian Cookbook

Time: 2.5+ hours

Ease: 10

Taste: 7

Leftover Value: No leftovers

Down the Drain or Keep in the Strainer: Down the Drain!

I love gnocchi.  It's yummy and light and different.  

But I've decided.  I don't like making gnocchi.  At least, not the way "The Best Ever Italian Cookbook" prepares it.  If I ever make it again, I'll be inventing my own way to do it.

Here is a nut shell of my experience.

First step: Boil potatoes.

With the skin on.

Someone explain this one to me.  I cannot imagine that it truly changes the essence of a potato to boil it without the skin rather than with the skin.

But perhaps someone else knows much better than me.

Second step: Let the potatoes cool, then peel then.  (They were still a little hot.  Therefore, I left some skin on them).

Third step: Now this part I really hated.  Partially because the potatoes weren't as done as they could have been and partially because it just seemed like a step that could have been done differently.

And in a much easier way.

Thanks for listening to my complaining.

Anyway, the potatoes needed to be forced through a sieve.

With a wooden spoon.

But that didn't work quite so well, so I just used my fingers.

That wasn't fun.  Or a good use of my time.

Fourth step: Mix in flour.  This part looked like it would be hard, but really wasn't.

It just took a lot more flour than the recipe called for to get it to look like this.

And my hands were a hot mess.

Fifth step: Those who wrote the recipe must have liked monster sized gnocchi.  Because the recipe said to cut the dough into six pieces, roll each piece into a log and cut the log into six to eight pieces.  I ended up with about 12-16 pieces per log, and even then I felt the pieces were too big.

Raw gnocchi. 

Sixth step: Toss gnocchi into boiling water for 4-5 minutes.

Cooked gnocchi.  

For some, I threw pesto sauce on top and mixed.

The others I made the recipe's Gorgonzola sauce for.  It wasn't too bad, I was just a little impatient at that point and didn't let the Gorgonzola get melty enough.

Yes, I said melty.

I imagine that leftover they would have been good.  They probably would have froze well too.

All in all, it was way too time consuming for something that I could buy at 99 cents a bag.  I liked it, it tasted good, but unless I can come up with a way to do it in under and hour, I want no part of making my own gnocchi.