Gnocchi help!

Nonnadiluca

I made gnocchi this afternoon using Jamie Oliver's recipe which is just potato and flour, no egg. I followed the instructions to the letter. I put a few into boiling water and stood over the pan, waiting for the gnocchi to float to the top. When there was no sign after about two minutes, I fished around with a slotted spoon and found......... nothing!!!!! They had completely dissolved. Any ideas what went wrong and what I should do? I want to make my own as it's as cheaper than buying ready made; anyway I make pretty much everything from scratch and don't want to be defeated by a potato!

-taff

a few things might have gone wrong. When you boil the potatoes boil them in their skins, or chopped very large because you dont want them to absorb water. You may have boiled them too much. Personally, I steam mine with one of those metal baskets whole if I can and then peel when still warm. When they are ready, let them steam dry before you mash.Again, I use a ricer to do that. for the flour, you need to make the gnocchi dough so that it's firm but quite springy, so you may have needed to add more flour. Then, when you cut them up, roll them over the back of a fork to make a kind of dented cup effect, it makes them cook more easily and holds a sauce, Dont realy press, just gently roll. Try and make the dough when the potatoes are still a bit warm, not totally cold.

-taff

Also, only put in a few at a time, don't overcrowd the pan, and put them in simmering boil water not fast boil water.

you can fish them out when they;re done, put them in  a warmed bowl, then sprinkle a bit of the sauce and cheese on top while the next ones are cooking.

skogar

I've not used the Jamie oliver gnocchi recipe and we have only made gnocchi once (when I bought a big bag of king Edwards reduced). We made a large batch and froze them (enough for 16 individual potions). Having only made them once I am certainly no expert! The following is all I know and I am probably telling you things you already know - so apologies for that.

I remember reading that the less flour you use the lighter your gnocchi will be but the more likely they are to fall to bits. If you are using the Jamie Oliver recipe I saw on the web it said to use 100g of type 00 flour for each kg of potatoes. So amount of flour is 1/10 of the weight of the potatoes which is lower than many other recipes.

The recipe we used didn't use egg and said to use 250g type 00 flour and up to 100g extra depending on the wetness of the potatoes for each kg. This was a recipe intended for people who hadn't made gnocchi before. We had no issues. Potatoes were boiled in this recipe. So this recipe uses an amount of flour at least 1/4 of the weight of the potatoes. I seem to remember we used about 300g. I suspect if you tried the Jamie oliver method with an amount of flour similar to the above you would probably get it to work.

What type of flour were you using? I can't remember what we used for ours but possibly there could be a difference between the different types.

I remember one of the potential issues being the potatoes when reading up on it the potatoes getting too wet from the boiling. This Carluccio recipe (which does use an egg) goes for baking them in the oven and scooping out the middles to avoid this so that could be worth a try. The amount of flour in this one 1/4 of the weight of the potatoes.

https://antoniocarlucciofoundation.org/recipe/potato-and-flour-dumplings-with-pesto/

Have checked the recipe in my Silver Spoon cookbook their recipe uses an egg too and boils the potatoes but uses 200g of flour to 1kg of potatoes so again higher than that in the jamie Oliver method.

I would try using more flour first (and you may want to try the Carluccio method of baking the potatoes (depends on whether you are trying to save fuel and how many gnocchi you are making) if I was making a large batch and the potatoes were large I would probably try this method.

Floury rather than waxy potatoes were recommended for gnocchi.

Hopefully the true gnocchi experts will be here soon to advise you. :-)

I hope you get it to work.

PollyWollyDoodle

I don’t know why they disappeared, I’m no expert; but when I make gnocchi I bake the spud first in the microwave rather than boiling it. No mess, very quick, easy to peel and the potato is ‘dry’. I’m sure Italian chefs would shudder at the thought, but it works for me!

JIL

I'm sure when I watched an Italian make gnocchi the potatoes were boiled in the skins, avoided checking they were cooked by piercing the skins, peeling them when they were hot and then layering them on a baking sheet to cool to get rid of as much moisture as possible. 

Would it work if you made the dough and tested one? That way you can experiment by adding more flour, until they do what they should do?

Nonnadiluca

Thanks for your suggestions. I cooked the potatoes in the microwave and used 00 flour. It sounds like I needed a lot more flour, but the recipe just said the dough should be "pliable" . I will definitely try again as, once mastered, I would make it fairly regularly. 

skogar

Fingers crossed Nonnadiluca. The gnocchi do freeze well so if you make a big batch you can freeze them and then they are quickly available when needed - should have another go really.