For as long as I can remember, my daughter's favorite Italian dish has been gnocchi (pronounced NYOH-kee), a fluffy pasta dumpling usually made with potato. She simply can't get enough of it. In her more poetic moments, she has referred to it as a happy little party in her mouth.
We have chosen restaurants to eat at based purely on whether or not they have gnocchi on the menu. And when my sister recently took a trip to Milan, my daughter was jealous of the gnocchi-filled meals she enjoyed there.
Though potato gnocchi originated in Florence, it is popular all over Italy. Luckily, the pasta is not too challenging to make from scratch, especially if you enlist help.
There are a few tricks to making really good potato gnocchi. First and foremost, use russet potatoes — they contain less water than other varieties so you can use less flour to form the dough. Second, instead of mashing the potatoes, put them through a ricer or grate them on the largest holes of a box grater, like I did. This helps to keep the finished product fluffy, and not gluey. Third, the dough should be kneaded only until the flour is incorporated because overworked dough can make for tough gnocchi.
Traditionally, the dough is rolled into ropes and then cut into small pieces. If you'd like, use the tines of a fork or a gnocchi paddle (available inexpensively from a good kitchen supply store) to make indentations in each gnocchi. These are thought to help the pasta hold more sauce. I like them because they make the gnocchi look authentic.
I wanted to make the dish into a celebration of springtime, so I used a tip that my sister picked up in Milan, steeping just a pinch of saffron with the cream for the sauce. This lends it a light earthy flavor and a pretty pastel yellow tint.
Incorporating tender young asparagus and lovely little peas, along with the sharp bite of really good Parmesan and the crunch of nicely crisped bits of pancetta (Italian bacon), this dish is at once creamy and light. The sauce nicely coats the fluffy pillows of gnocchi.
So gather your family together for some pasta-making fun. The process is almost as delightful as the final product.
for the gnocchi dough:
For the sauce:
To make the dough:
To cook the gnocchi:
To make the sauce:
This article was originally published in Seven Days' monthly parenting magazine, Kids VT.
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