Gnocchi di Patate

Ingredients for 6 people:
1 kg (2lbs) floury/starchy potatoes like Desiree or King Edward
300 gr of plain flour plus some for dusting
Pinch of salt

Process
Steam the potatoes with their skins until they are very soft. As soon as you can hold them, peel them
and puree’ them through a potato ricer straight on to your work surface, dusted with flour. Don’t
use a food processor because they will be too gluey and unusable.
Wait until they cool down a bit, then add three quarters of the flour and a pinch of salt. Try a little
chunk of dough and add salt if necessary. Knead to a soft, smooth and not very sticky dough. Add
more flour, if necessary, but the less flour you add, the tastier the gnocchi will be.
Roll pieces of dough into thin cylindrical shaped dough and cut them into slices about 3 cm long
(cushion-shaped).
Lightly press each gnocco against the tines of a fork and then place them on a clean tea towel,
dusted with flour.
Get a large saucepan of salted water to the boil. Drop the gnocchi, few at a time, in the water and
wait for them to rise to the surface. Now they are ready. Collect them with a slotted spoon and put
them in a dish. No other work on them is needed.
In a frying pan, put abundant butter, ideally clarified so it can hold higher temperature, and fresh
sage.
Pour the sauce over the gnocchi and sprinkle Parmesan or salty ricotta generously on the gnocchi.
Buon appetito!

Note
The proportion between flour and potato might change depending on the quantity of starch in the
potatoes. Even if they are starchy, every harvest is different. So the proportion 1000/300 of the
recipe is only for reference. The dough needs to be soft but not sticky. It only takes practice to grasp
the right softness. Most importantly, have the gnocchi straight away or freeze them.