I would like to introduce my Gnocchi basic recipe to you here. In addition I show you the simple supplement with sage butter. This is how an idea ready to eat is put on the plate in an article 🙂
I am a big fan of these little Italian cams. They are healthy, because they are mainly made of potatoes and above all they are delicious!
The small dumplings are a great hors d’oeuvre for your menu. As a main course they harmonize with various sauces.
The best information at the end: Gnocchi are very easy to make according to my basic recipe. You can do that in no time at all!
So, now I wish you lots of fun in the kitchen and good luck!
Spinach gnocchi I show you in another post. © Food Photographer Thomas Sixt
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1. How to make the Gnocchi yourself
Let me make one thing clear:
Homemade makes you proud and happy while eating! You know what’s in it: Good ingredients and lots of love in the preparation!
My basic ingredients are:
- Floury potatoes
- One quarter to one third flour as a proportion
- One egg (optional)
- A little bit of salt
- Freshly grated nutmeg
If you are short on time, you can find quite passable pre-produced goods on the shelves of the supermarkets. This is definitely possible for a quick variation.
Frying the sage makes crispy sage chips. This gives you a potato flavour and crunchy feeling on the palate. © Thomas Sixt Foodphotographer
1.1. Boil potatoes
Boiled mealy potatoes are our main ingredient. You can cook with or without peel, I leave that to you. I tend to cook in the skin, it gives more starch.
Use a floury potato variety like Afra, Agria, Bintje, Lilly, Finka…
I recommend that you cook the potatoes a day earlier and only prepare them in the dough the next day. If you only have a shorter lead time, you should make sure that your cooked potatoes are already cooled down before you process them further.
My Chef Tip: Boil your potatoes at best 1 day before preparation.
Now we have removed the skin from our potatoes and want to make them doughy. There are several ways to get the tubers into the dough:
- Put warm potatoes through a potato ricer.
- Grate cold potatoes with a tower or square grater.
- Pass warm potatoes through a food mill, e.g. with the “passatutto”.
I tend to use the grater. There’s nothing Italian about it, my grandmother used to grate potatoes for finger pasta with the grater.
I have adopted this method and have remained true to it. After all, the cooked potatoes get a little more love when they are carefully grated by hand.
Potato grater and boiled potatoes. Grated by hand is easy and fast.
1.2. Prepare the Dough
Once the potatoes are grated, you can use them to prepare the dough. A picture says more than 1000 words…
Prepare potato dough with boiled potatoes, flour, salt, nutmeg and egg.© Thomas Sixt Foodphotgrapher I Kamera Canon EOS RP
1.3 Shape Dough
After kneading the dough briefly, form even rolls on a floured large board.
Form potato dough into rolls. Here, manual labor is the order of the day. © Thomas Sixt Foodphotographer
Cut off the dumplings with a knife and give them their final shape with a fork or gnocchi board.
Homemade Italian cams: The fork or a special board makes the typical pattern here. © Thomas Sixt Food Photographer
What do you put the grooves in the potato gnocchi for? So the sauce sticks better!
1.4. Cooking the Gnocchi
Do not cook your cams until your sage butter or sauce is ready.
The sauce is always ready waiting for the gnocchi.
You need boiling water, plenty of salt. The boiling water should taste like sea water!
When are your potato gnocchi ready?
When the potato gnocchi float up, you can serve!
Cook gnocchi in salted water, gnocchi floating on the surface are ready!
Always cook your gnocchi in an open pot without a lid, it’s quick, after only 2-3 minutes you’re ready to serve!
2. Gnocchi with Sage Butter
Gnocchi with sage butter is a classic of the Italian kitchen.
This simple and delicious dish is made one, two, three. For a perfect result with an appealing appearance, I always proceed this way:
First, I deep-fry fresh sage leaves separately from the butter in hot oil. In doing so, they should be preserved as whole leaves.
Crispy fried fresh sage leaves are always fried in oil and come later to the dish.
I fish the leaves out of the pan and lay them out to drain on kitchen paper. I season the leaves with a pinch of salt.
In the second step I heat the butter in a pan and brown the butter at a high temperature. Then I pour the butter through a fine stainless steel hair sieve into a small bowl. This way I remove the brown residue from the butter.
Clear, browned butter, after heating, the nut butter must pass through a heat-resistant sieve.
Now I take our ready cooked potato gnocchi out of the pot with the skimmer, drain them well and add them to the hot butter in the pan.
In the third step I toss my gnocchi in the pan with the butter and can immediately place them on warm plates. I place the sage leaves on the plate with the gnocchi and garnish with finely grated parmesan.
3. Recipe
- 500 g floury potatoes e.g. Ackersegen or Bintje
- 150 g flour This is also available gluten-free.
- 1 pc egg
- 3 pinches salt
- 3 pinches nutmeg
- 10 pc leaves of sage fresh sage
- 2 tbs oil for deep-frying sage
- 80 g clarified butter
- 1-2 pinches salt I use primal salt or Himalayan salt.
- 1 pinch pepper
- 1 pinch nutmeg
- 50 g grated parmesan
- To make the gnocchi dough, cook floury potatoes as jacket potatoes for about 20 minutes. Pour off the cooked potatoes, let them evaporate and let them rest over night. The next day, remove the skin from the tubers and place a suitable high saucepan on the stove with about 2 litres of water and add 1 tablespoon of salt. Bring to the boil.
- Now grate the cold potatoes with a tower grater or put them through a potato press.
- Pick up the potato mixture with the dough scraper and place in a mixing bowl.
- Add the grated potatoes with flour and egg. Season with nutmeg, salt and pepper.
- Quickly knead the mixture with your floured hands and form a dough ball.
- Sprinkle some flour on a large wooden board and roll sausages as thick as a man's thumb out of the dough.
- From the dough sausages now cut off approx. 1 cm large pieces with a sharp knife.
- Either press in the gnocchi pattern with a long fork or roll the dough buttons over the back of the fork.
- Put the noodles into the boiling water and let them steep for about 2-3 minutes.
- Scoop the small dumplings out of the water with a skimmer.
- Heat some oil in a pan. Put fresh sage leaves in the hot pan and deep-fry them, remove the fried leaves from the pan, put them on a kitchen towel to drain and season with salt.
- Heat and brown the butter, then pass it through a stainless steel hair sieve into a bowl.
- Allow the brown butter to cool slightly for final preparation.
- Grate Parmasan finely.
- Add freshly cooked gnocchi to the nut butter in the pan and toss. Season to taste with salt, pepper and nutmeg and use a tablespoon to lift the dumplings out of the gnocchi pan and place on the plate. Garnish with the fried sage leaves. Sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese and enjoy!
4. Calories and Nutritional Values at a Glance
5. Frequently asked Questions
Can gnocchi be made without flour?
Use maize starch instead of flour, gluten-free flour is a good choice for a gluten-free diet.
How do I know that gnocchi are cooked to perfection?
Place the potato gnocchi in boiling salted water, then let them simmer slightly. The gnocchi are ready when they float to the surface.
How can I make gnocchi vegan?
Do not use egg and increase the proportion of flour or starch. Form a sample dumpling and place it in the boiling water. If the dumpling does not fall apart, you can form the whole dough, otherwise increase the starch content by adding cornflour.
How can I prepare gnocchi without a potato press?
Grate the cooled potatoes with the fine kitchen grater and then prepare a gnocchi dough.
Can I freeze gnocchi?
You can freeze shaped gnocchi on a baking tray. Use more flour when shaping the gnocchi so that the dough pieces do not stick to the baking tray when shock frozen. You can put the frozen gnocchi in a bag and then cook them directly in boiling water as needed.
