Gnocchi

I’ve discovered that shaping gnocchi with flour and a fork is a tranquil way to spend an afternoon, chatting with a loved one. Each small peace of potato dough is methodically thumbed over a fork to create the perfect (with practice) scored “pillow” pasta. It was during this process that I sat at a table with my Nonna, gossiping and catching up.

Like many Italian recipes, there are bound to be variations of the dish depending on the region of Italy. For Nonna (representing Sicily) the recipe is very simple: flour, eggs, and potatoes. That’s it.

The ingredients are few, but that’s not to say making gnocchi is a walk in the park. There is some elbow grease involved. First, we boiled the potatoes—Ten, to be exact, because we were making gnocchi to give to family. If you were making gnocchi for just a few people, then you would use only three potatoes. 

Then, we mashed the potatoes on a wooden board and added lots of flour and two eggs to create the dough. (This is where the elbow grease comes in.) One must knead the dough and keep adding flour until it is firm, and not sticky.

Once that was done, we rolled it out and chopped the dough up into small pieces. Then we could sit down, take our hundreds of gnocchi pieces and use our thumbs to roll them over a fork to fold them into just the shape we wanted. During this time we talked about important things—mostly family. I also spoke to her sister Maria on the phone. She wants to know when I’m going to visit her in Italy. I wish I was there right now, is what I was thinking. “Non lo so,” I managed to pipe up. (My Italian is pathetic.) It was about then I drifted into lala land and imagined myself boarding a plane and going back to Italy. Someday…someday, I keep telling myself.

To complete the dish, we boiled the gnocchi and put in a dish with homemade tomato sauce and grated Pecorino Romano. So. Delicious. It was an amazing lunch and time well spent with Nonna.