Gnocchi Recipe

Apparently Desirée are the best English variety of potato to use to make gnocchi. We just harvested our remaining Desirée and I have been meaning to give gnocchi a go for a while.

This is enough for 8 people, but you can freeze what is left over.

1kg Desirée potatoes (or another variety which is mid way between waxy and floury)

350g plain flour

Salt - 1 tsp or to taste

Steam or boil the potatoes until cooked (steaming is better as they fall apart and go soggy less)

Put them in a large bowl with the salt and mash thoroughly (or use a potato ricer - I keep nearly buying one but can't decide if we *need* one). Mix in the flour with a spoon or you hands - bit at a time is least messy. Tip out on to a flat surface and kneed like bread but for less long - just until the flour and the potato are evenly mixed.

Divide in to 4 pieces and roll the first one in to a sausage shape about 2cm in diameter - or smaller if you want smaller gnocchi. 

Cut 1.5 cm lengths from the sausage. 

Then use a fork to make indentations on the top - look on the internet how to shape them, you kind of squish them down a fork so they are an arch shape with ridges on top.

Tip the pieces in to a large pan of boiling salted water until they float. Scoop out with a slotted spoon as they rise to the surface.

I served with mashed roast pumpkin fried with chicken and onion with basil stirred in at the end - and sweet corn on the side. Chicken not homegrown but everything else was.

If you want to freeze them do it before cooking. Arrange the gnocchi on a freezer proof plate or tray so they are not touching and freeze. Once frozen you can transfer to a bag or tupperware box. This stops them all freezing together in a big clump.