Potato Gnocchi

Almost all potato gnocchi recipes will tell you to steam your potatoes, don't, the secret to successful and great tasting gnocchi is baking your potatoes.
For best results a potato ricer should be used but you can get excellent results mashing your potatoes. The real trick with gnocchi is, don't be scared to have a go at it, it will probably take two or three attempts to get perfect, fluffy, soft, delcious, pillows of gnocchi.



Potato Gnocchi

1.2kg baking potatoes
200g flour
1 egg, lightly beaten
salt

Heat your oven to 170C and bake your potatoes until well cooked and soft all the way through in around 1 1/2 hours.
Remove potatoes from the oven, slice in two length ways and leave to cool down until you can handle them without burning yourself but they are still hot.
Scoop out your potatoes and pass through a ricer into a large bowl or mash well but gently. Refrigerate the potato skins, I will have a delicious potato skins recipe for you in a couple of days.
Stir in the flour, egg and a couple of pinches of salt and mix well until you have a stiff uniform dough then turn out onto a flat surface. Cut off about 1/5 of the dough and using the palms of your hands roll into long thin rolls about 1 1/2 cm thick then cut into 2cm lengths and place on a tea towel lightly dusted with flour, continue until you have used all your dough. You can leave the gnocchi like this for an hour or two before cooking if you wish.
When you are ready to eat bring a large pot of lightly salted water to the boil, pick up your gnocchi in the tea towel and dump the whole lot into the boiling water. Very gently stir the water a couple of times during cooking to ensure all the gnocchi cooks and when it has all risen to the surface of the water remove with a slotted spoon or skimmer and serve.

Sauce

Very simple, a can of crushed tomatoes, a finely diced sweet red pepper, cooked streaky bacon and a little Kaitaia Fire, salt and pepper. Heat until slightly reduced and serve over the gnocchi with fresh parmesan.