Try it with TANTO Montepulciano !
A few days ago we posted Angelo’s recipe for making gnocchi. Today I would like to give you “my way” of making gnocchi. In Italy if you ask a hundred people how to make gnocchi you will probably get 101 different versions! So do not be surprised and have fun trying out both of them. Here you can also find a meat sauce recipe that in my opinion is best with gnocchi. I’d love to receive your feedback after you try Angelo’s version and my version!

Ingredients for gnocchi (Serves 5 persons):

• All pourpose flour 0.60 Pound
• Red potatoes 2.2 Pound
• NO EGG (this is the difference between my recipe and Angelo’s recipe)
• Salt

Ingredients for the sauce (Serves 5 persons):

• 1 medium size onion (any type)
• 1 small stalk of celery
• 1 carrot
• Beef (suggest you use 1 medium size steak off the bone)
• Pork (suggest you use 1 large pork chop off the bone)
• 2 Italian sausages
• 1 glass of GOOD !!! white dry !!! wine
• 1 large can of crushed tomato
• 1 small can of tomato sauce
• 5 table spoons of EV Olive Oil
• Salt to your taste
• Grounded black pepper to your taste
• Parmesan cheese and Pecorino Romano cheese to your taste

Peel the potatoes and boil them in salted water until they become soft (not too soft though! Do not let them become too watery). To test use a sharp knife and you should go through the potatoes feeling the inside a bit harder. Drain them and let them cool down.

In the meanwhile put the flour on a wooden board making a layer less than an inch thick.

Using a riser mash the potatoes on top of the flour and, with your hands, gently mix it all together.

Keep going and make sure the potatoes and the flour smoothly mix until they form a nice and medium soft dough. Please note that depending on the humidity in the potatoes they will absorb more or less flour so if you feel that the dough is ready you do not have to necessarily use all flour. On the other hand if you feel you need more (because the dough is too soft) add some extra as you work on the dough.

Cut a piece of the dough at a time.

Work it with your hands to make long sticks until they reach the right size.

Cut gnocchi the size of the nail of your medium finger.

Place gnocchi on a tray (put aluminum foil or better wax paper underneath and put flour on the tray to avoid gnocchi to stick and put them in the fridge while you are preparing the sauce or until you are ready to pour them into boiling water.

As for the sauce, the one suggested here, takes about 3 hours to cook plus the time to prepare all ingredients and start it. So make sure you can be around in the house for a good while! Best is to prepare sauce the day before and let it sit (put it in the fridge).
Use a large, not too high pan to cook the sauce. Pour the EV Olive Oil in the pan. Slice onion, carrot and celery finely and put them in the pan too. Put on stove, medium fire, and let them cook until they turn soft and light brown (do not burn!)

In the meanwhile cut beef and pork into cubes (about 1.5 inch wide). Cut each sausage in 3 pieces and put all the meat into the pan. Cook until it begins to brown. Then pour the wine into the pan and let it cook until the wine is completely evaporated.

Then add the crushed tomatoes and the sauce. Add salt and grounded black pepper (to your taste) and cook on low heat for at least 3 hours. Check it from time to time to make sure it does not stick at the bottom!
Boil the water (salt it as you would do with pasta) in a large medium height pan and use really boiling water and keep heat high. You can pour gnocchi in different turns and it is very easy to understand when they are ready as they start popping up and when they do this they are ready to be drained with a scoop with holes. Do not stir gnocchi with a fork when you pour them in water just make sure that as you pour them you cover back with a lid and bring it back to boiling asap. If you need to use something to stir always use wooden tools and go gently. Gnocchi pop up themselves when they are ready to be drained!

To dress gnocchi use a large ceramic serving plate. Put some of the sauce to start with then, as gnocchi start popping up in the water, drain them and put them in the serving plate. Keep adding a little bit of sauce and drained gnocchi. Sprinkle with Parmesan and Pecorino cheese (i use 50/50) and keep going until all gnocchi are coocked, drained and dressed to perfection!