Gnocchi

Nyeah nyeah nyeah… Oh, sorry, I wasn’t taunting you, I was just practicing my phonemes so I could correctly say today’s recipe. Nyoh-kee. Gnocchi!

 

Gnocchi is an Italian style of pasta (well, I guess all pasta is Italian, really, if it’s not Italian it’s just noodles,) that is primarily made of potatoes. This is convenient for us, since potatoes are naturally gluten-free, so our end result is going to be pretty much indistinguishable from the original. Plus, it’s a great way to use up leftover mashed potatoes. Start with two pounds, or about 4 cups of mashed potatoes.

 

If you made them fresh instead of pulling them out of the fridge, do make sure they are completely cooled before you start, otherwise they won’t cook properly. Now add 1 cup of rice flour, either brown or white.

 

Also mix in 3/4 cup potato starch, and 1/4 cup tapioca starch. Mash everything together with a fork until the flour is distributed evenly throughout the potatoes.

 

In a bowl, melt 2 Tablespoons of Fleischmann’s Unsalted Margarine (NOT Original, as it has casein,) or other butter substitute of your choice. [As always, the brands I use were GFCF at the time of posting, but manufacturers can change formulas without warning. Always check your labels!] Then crack 3 eggs into the bowl, and scramble it all together.

 

Wait, ah, unscramble it for a second. Add 2 teaspoons of salt. Now scramble it again.

 

Dump the egg mixture into the potato mixture, and stir it into a thick dough.

 

Soon you will no longer be able to stir it, and you’ll need to use your hands to knead it. (This means lift the back half, fold it towards you, and squish. Fold the sides back in as necessary, and repeat until everything is smooth.)

 

Grab a fistful of dough, and roll it on a cutting board into a long snake, just like in preschool. You may need to sprinkle a little rice flour on your cutting board to keep the dough from sticking.

 

Cut the snake into bite-sized ovals.

 

Then toss the gnocchi you just made into a pot of barely boiling water, and let them start to cook while you make the next snake. See how they’ve sunk to the bottom?

 

When they’re done, they will float to the top. Isn’t that handy? Just keep tossing in cut up snakes as you make them, and remove anything that floats to the top with a slotted spoon. Serve them straight into bowls, or even freeze them in a Ziplock bag at this point.

 

Ideally, they’re supposed to look like delicate little ovals instead of misshapen blobs, but I’m always more concerned with speed than presentation, so I’m not very gentle with my gnocchi. The important thing is that they taste fantastic. Another thing you can do with the dough is flatten it into small patties, and fry them in a pan instead of boiling. Kind of like latkes, but softer.

Best get to it, though, whatever you decide, because I’m not sharing any of mine. So nyeah.

 

Gnocchi

2 lbs (4 cups) cooked mashed potatoes
1 cup rice flour
3/4 cup potato starch
1/4 cup tapioca starch
2 TBS Fleischmann’s Unsalted margarine (NOT Original)
3 eggs
2 tsp salt