Making Gnocchi!

My past attempts at gnocchi all had one thing in common: abject failure. Either the taste or texture (or in one particularly egregious case, both) more resembled school paste than anything approaching good eats. So when Chef Mary Martini at the Central Market Cooking School offered a hands-on class, we promptly signed up.

The hands-on aspect played an important role in this class (much like the pasta making class we took a few months ago). It's not enough to watch it being done and take notes. You need to feel for the right texture, with expert guiding hands behind you ("it needs more flour").

I always appreciate that Chef Mary starts spot on-time, even if one or two people haven't yet arrived. Lesson one: how to pronounce the word. "I won't teach you how to cook it until you say it right," she said. It's not NOH-key or (making any Italian within a 100 yards cringe) "guh-NOCK-ee. It's "NYAH-key." "You have to say it through your nose," she suggested.

Her recipe starts with three pounds of russet potatoes. We asked about other types of potatoes, but she didn't recommend them; russets have the best amount of starch. Boil them whole, skins on, and remove from the pan. Leave them until they've cooled enough to handle.

Next step: breaking down the potatoes. She had a variety of tools on hand—a potato ricer, a box grater, and a food mill. We ended up using the box grater, because we didn't care for their ricer. We adore our ricer at home, though (pictured above). If you don't have one of these, get one soon. They make for terrific mashed potatoes. (In this one case, we are in disagreement with Alton Brown, who doesn't like the texture of riced potatoes.)

Make a little volcano crater with the potatoes, and put an egg and a bit of parmesan in the center. Start mixing the ingredients together, adding flour as you go. The flour holds everything together, but the less you use, the lighter the gnocchi. (If you don't add enough, they'll disintegrate when they hit the water.) Once the dough is not too tacky, tear off a piece and roll it into a snake (sprinkle your surface with some bench flour). Use a bench scraper or butter knife to cut off a half-inch piece. Cut three or four pieces and put them into a pot of boiling water to make sure they'll hold together. Once you're sure the dough consistency is correct, cut the rest of the gnocchi (at right). As you add them to the water, stir so they don't all glob onto the bottom of the pan and make a mess. They'll float to the top; leave in about another minute. Remove them into a marinara or cream sauce (on a low burner nearby).

If you want to freeze them, cook them for a little shorter time (removing when they float to the top), remove them to a colander, and rinse with cold water (to stop the cooking process). Let them dry (we spread ours out on parchment paper), and put them into small resealable freezer bags (one layer each). You'll need to reboil them to defrost and finish cooking them.

They....or we, I guess....prepared three varieties with three different sauces:

• plain gnocchi with a marinara sauce
• stuffed gnocchi with a vodka cream tomato sauce
• spinach and ricotta gnocchi with a gorgonzola cream sauce (our favorite)

Besides learning how to make gnocchi, I also learned how to make a quinelle from baking expert Chef Steve Werling. Yet another skill that requires a hands-on class. The chefs on TV make it look so simple, but when I tried it, I more or less wrapped my arms around themselves. This is NOT right, I told Steve. He showed me, then got my hands positioned right, then...voila!!... a perfect little football-shaped spinach gnocchi!

Chef Mary encouraged everyone to try these new skills at home as soon as possible. "If you wait a month," she said, "you'll have forgotten everything." We're trying ours tonight for our next Meatless Monday!