Kegs and Kitchen

Armed with a bunch of sweet potatoes from the Johnson’s Backyard Garden, a new Kitchenaid mixer and an undying desire to make gnocchi for the first time, I set out this weekend to make that dream a reality. Lydia would be so proud. She makes it look so easy! What’s so hard about potatoes, flour and eggs right? Right.

First, there’s no way to write an exact recipe for gnocchi as there are too many variables. Moisture content, altitude, size of your eggs and probably several more that I’m not even aware of yet. If you’ve made dough before, you get the idea. This is no different.

To start, you want to bake your taters rather than boiling so that you don’t introduce any more moisture that will have to be sucked up with more flour. Speaking of flour, start with less than you think you’ll need. Too much, and you’ve got dry, tough pasta. Too little, and it’s going to be a slimy mess. This is an art folks, not an exact science. It’s so worth it though. What you’re going for is pasta dough that sticks to itself more than to your floured hands. Once your dough is ready, form it into long rolls about an inch in diameter and cut into once inch pieces. Put a little flour on the back of a fork and roll your pasta pieces with your thumb and forefinger along the tines of the fork to create the ridges that will later grab your sauce that you top the pasta with. Simple right?

Gnocchi, like any pasta, will take whatever kind of sauce you like. I went with a cream sauce which I thought would get along well with the sweet potato. To make it a bit more interesting, I made it a feta/parm cheese sauce. Heavy cream, goat’s milk feta, parmigiano reggiano (say it out loud like Lydia does, it’s fun!), basil, garlic, oregano, salt & pepper reduced via a slow simmer. Delizioso!