Gnocchi

ARTS ! ↑

Gnocchi dun differently, twice. The thing is, I just now watched a hundred fifty YouTube videos on gnocchi -- Okay FINE! -- six YouTube videos and they all say the same thing; boil the gnocchi until they float. But why? To cook the flour and egg of course. I don't want them boiled, I want them fried. I don't see the point in boiling and frying although I could be wrong. So the first batch is not boiled, the second batch is. But not boiled in a pot like they're supposed to be, rather boiled in shallow water in the same pan that fries them. 

But first check out the bump on this egg. Man, that's gotta hurt. 

That's gotta hurt.

Instructions all over the internet, on every video, in every book written throughout history instruct to boil potatoes with the skin on careful not to allow them to soak up too much water because then that will have to be compensated with flour and you do not want that. Then process the cooked potatoes in a passatutto (food mill) to keep them light, fluffy and aerated, careful not to over process them however they are processed, to use as little flour as possible. Well, guess what, that's what microwaves and ricers do with great precision, so get over it. I don't want to hear any nonsense about this not being the way Nonna Bettina did it Italy for decades. Pffft. Although I hold nothing against Nonna, did it ever occur to you she might not have had a microwave or a ricer? I would avoid a processor. Too easily overdone. 

Salt and egg are added to the fluffed potato and gently mixed in while the potato is still hot, but not so hot that it cooks the egg. Pretty much any other ingredient you dream up can be included at this point, although most of the videos I watched are depressingly unimaginative. In fact, only one ventures beyond the perfectly mundane, and in another video the cook, an Italian guy, is the only one who kneads the dough for ten minutes. Another drops them in hard boiling water where other cooks caution against that pointing out that by dropping them into gently simmering water protects their tender structure from falling apart. One girl eschews rolling out a length of dough and instead breaks off individual pieces and rolls each little gnocchi into a separate ball instead of whacking off chunks from a snake-shaped rolled wedge of dough. Most cooks add a texture to the finished gnocchi, others cannot be arsed to tediously mark them individually as they must be dragged across something textured one at a time, as these are with a fork, the purpose being to create ridges that assist with sauce adhesion. So that goes to show you there are as many techniques out there as there are cooks unless by some inexplicable compulsion you find yourself sworn in fealty to someone else's rules. And that would be a shame. 

The first batch pictured at top ↑ went directly into a pan with hot oil including a drizzle of truffle oil. Marsala with cream to deglaze the pan just to heat through. I must say, this truffle oil isn't all it's cracked up to be. Maybe I'm not using enough. I don't know. 

The second batch shown below ↓ was boiled in water first, until they appeared to float then fried in the same pan with plain oil with no truffle oil then finished with cream but no Marsala. So the second batch was more plain. They are both equally delicious with no apparent difference between boiled and not boiled. I do like the delicate crunch imparted by frying. None of the videos I saw today did that. Originally I was going to omit the cream but the gnocchi appeared to be dry even though I poured on the olive oil, so I broke down and added cream, and I'm glad because it is absolutely delicious especially once you get going pushing them around on your plate and it picks up every little loose particle there is to be picked up, it's quite efficient that way. One really does need a piece of bread to make sure one gets at the very last drop, either that or lick the plate. 

Speaking of YouTube videos. This guy attempted to deep-fry commercially produced gnocchi. I think his intention was to pour Frank's^® cayenne sauce over them because he has a gallon of it on the table next to the fryer, but he never got that far. They explode to great hilarity.

Previous gnocchi:

gnocchi

gnocchi nearly

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