Your potatoes can be any variety you like, but the ones with waxy skins don’t tend to get as light and fluffy as you will need. If you’ve never splurged on specialty potatoes, now might be the time to do so, as the better the taste of the potatoes, the better the taste of your gnocchi (pronounced knee-okie). My potatoes here came from the bottom of my potato bin and are a mix of Butte, Caribe, and Red Cloud potatoes. They are also a bit wrinkly, owing to the fact that I harvested them last summer, but they’ll work perfectly well.
I should also point out that I’ve used pumpkin or another sweet squash instead of potato, and it is wonderful. Make certain you drain and cook the pumpkin exceedingly well first to drive out all the moisture you can. If there is too much water, more flour will need to be added to make a dough, and then the dough tastes more like flour than it does pumpkin. When serving pumpkin gnocchi, consider serving it with a simple sauce to showcase the sweetness of the pumpkin.
The first thing that will need to be done is to boil the potatoes. When boiling potatoes, always start them in cool water so that the skins don’t crack as they cook. As such, fill a pot with cool water, place the whole potatoes in it, and put on the stove to boil. Depending on the size of your potatoes, you will need to boil them for 20 to 30 minutes (20 for small potatoes, 30 for really big ones). Most of my potatoes are medium-sized, so I’ll boil them for 25 minutes. Only start counting this boiling time when the water actually begins to boil. You can also microwave the potatoes for 15 minutes, but I prefer boiling to keep more of the moisture in the potatoes.
Fun Fact:Gnocchi has been made for over 2,000 years, but potato gnocchi has been made only since the 1500s when the potato was first introduced to Europe.
