I always thought gnocchi had to be made with eggs and when I asked Ciro, the proprietor of the Bella Ciao restaurant in Chennai and my daughter's neighbour, he confirmed that an egg was one of the ingredients. A couple of weeks later, however, I saw 'home-made gnocchi' on the menu at the Moondance Garden restaurant in Pushkar. The town being completely vegetarian (Indian style - milk but no eggs), I concluded that the recipe must also work without eggs. I never got a chance to find out how well it worked, as every time I ordered gnocchi, the waiter apologised and said, 'Maybe tomorrow'.
I tried out an egg-free recipe at home in Kazakhstan, and sure enough, it worked first time. Usually, gnocchi is made by rolling the dough into wee balls, flattening them out and making little designs on them with a fork before folding them in half. 'A gey footery business.' as my granny would have said. Ciro advised me of a much easier and faster way of doing it, though the finished gnocchi don't look quite as pretty. Who cares? They're going to get eaten anyway.
The quantities here should be enough for three or four people.
Ingredients
500g potatoesPeel the potatoes and boil them until they're soft. Mash them and allow them to cool before mixing in flour, oil and salt. The exact amount of flour will depend on the potatoes. The dough should be fairly soft but manageable. On a well floured surface, roll the dough into long snakes about 2 cm thick, then cut the snakes into 4 cm pieces. You now have a load of gnocchi.
Fill a large pot (the larger the better) with water, and bring it to the boil. Gently lower the gnocchi into the water with a large slotted spoon. They will float to the top after just a few minutes and that means they're ready. Use your slotted spoon again to lift the gnocchi out of the pot and put them in serving plates.
Adding a little butter or margarine and maybe a bit of grated cheese is enough to make a delicious meal, but you can experiment with other ingredients. Here are a few ideas:
Melt the butter in a frying pan. Fry sesame seeds for a minute, then remove the pan from the heat and crumble a couple of dried sage leaves into the butter. Immediately pour it over the gnocchi.
In olive oil, fry chopped mushrooms, a little garlic and black pepper, for five minutes. Add a couple of large spoons of sour cream, stir, thin with water if necessary and pour over the gnocchi.
Heat olive oil in a pan. Fry chopped garlic and walnuts for a minute. Add chopped spinach, salt, pepper and nutmeg and cover the pan. When the spinach is soft (after 3 to 4 minutes), pour the mixture over the gnocchi.