I had an Italian grandmother, but she never made gnocchi. I’ve managed to live most of my life without ever tasting gnocchi, and having tasted it, I’m not sure it’s one of life’s necessities. Still, our kids love the stuff, so I decided to make gnocchi today and post the recipe.
I made a double batch, which I will NEVER do again. Half way through, I lost my will to live. The last third of my efforts looked less like gnocchi and more like mutant slugs that crawl up your nose into your brain and take over your body. Don’t worry kids, I won’t give you that last tray.
Still, there really isn’t much to making gnocchi. And if you don’t want to bother rolling each one on the tines of a fork, to make little sauce-holding ridges, it would be really fast.
I’ve never tried cooking them fresh. I always just make them and stick them in the freezer for a rainy day. So I guess it’s possible they may not come out the same. I guess if somebody tries making and cooking them without freezing, they can let me know. So here’s what a non-slug looking gnocchi is supposed to look like.
Cousin Gayle has been craving the potato figasa our Noni used to make. When she had some leftover mashed potatoes and needed an afternoon snack, Noni would make a little figasa. I often dropped in about the time it was done, since I lived spitting distance away, and poor Noni had to share her figasa and beer with me. Oh yeah, that’s the way us Italian kids rolled.
Full disclosure, we always got booze, coffee too, at Noni’s. Breakfast was a mug of coffee with a lot of cream and sugar. We’d dump in Cheerios, eat them, then drink the coffee. Meals came with wine, but it was a glass full of water with just enough rot gut red wine to give it a little color. Figasa came with beer. Anybody remember ABC beer? Silver can, red and blue letters. Noni probably bought it because it was the cheapest. 7up got jazzed up with a splash of Creme de Menthe. Coffee got zippy with a dash of brandy (Coffee Royale). And today, I don’t like beer or wine, but still do LOVE coffee! And I’ve digressed down memory lane.
Anyway, back to potato figasa. If you fry the gnocchi dough in olive oil, you get something pretty much like the potato figasa Noni used to make. We’ll let cousin Gayle give it a try and see how it measures up.
