Gnocchi

Step 1

Preheat oven to 160^oC (320^oF). 

Step 2

Wash the potatoes (but don’t peel), dry well and prick all over the potatoes. Place in the oven and cook for an hour or until tender.

Step 3

While the potatoes are still hot, slice them in half and scoop out the insides into a bowl. Using a potato rice or wire sieve, ‘rice’ the potatoes.

Step 4

Add most of the flour (reserving 1/2 cup), nutmeg and sea salt and gently mix together with your fingers.

Step 5

Make a well in the centre and add the eggs.

Step 6

Working gently, bring everything together into a dough. Make sure not to overwork the dough to ensure your gnocchi is pillow soft. 

Step 7

Once the dough is dry enough to work with, dust your work surface with the remaining flour and divide the dough into four pieces.

Step 8

Roll each piece of dough into a long sausage, about 3-4cm wide. Cut 2cm ‘gnocchi pieces’ out. Press each ‘gnocchi’ piece against the inside of a fork and your thumb, then lightly dust with flour and place on a tray lined with baking paper.

Step 9

You can now either freeze the gnocchi (they can be cooked from frozen) or drop them straight into a big pot of salted boiling water and cook until they have all bubbled up to the surface of the water and then count to five before draining the water.

Either freeze the gnocchi to be cooked later or place the pieces straight into a pot of salted boiling water.  Cook the gnocchi until they have bubbled up to the surface of the water and drain.

Step 10

For the Sage and butter sauce:  Melt the butter until almost browned, add the sage leaves and lemon zest and cook for another couple of minutes. Poor over the gnocchi and grate over parmesan cheese to serve