Gnocchi

I was lucky enough to have my friend Morena come over and do the dirty job and be my "sfoglina" for the day. "Le sfogline" are traditional fresh pasta makers from the Emilian region, usually middle aged or elderly women. Morena is young and beautiful but not less talented in the art of fresh pasta making!

She followed her sister's recipe using only flour, potatoes and salt. The recipe usually suggests adding an egg for every kg. of potatoes but the eggless version was actually very soft and not heavy at all. We were very happy with the result!

Ingredients:

1 kg of potatoes ( Morena kept her potatoes in a dark place for three weeks allowing them to age gracefully which apparently adds flavour to the gnocchi).
Salt, as needed.
Flour, as needed.

Boil the potatoes until they are very soft. Peel the potatoes and keep them on the side to cool until they are warm. Boiling hot potatoes are a no no. Once they have cooled off a bit you can start mashing them with a a fork or a potato masher. Add some salt.

Now you can start adding the flour and working your way until you have a ball of potato dough. We kind of followed our instinct and added flour as we went along. Sounds like witchcraft more than cooking, not very precise but effective.

Take a piece of dough and start rolling it with your hands, you can add flour if things get a bit sticky.
The result should be a long " potato dough sausage". Repeat until you have rolled the entire ball into these lovely wormlike dough creatures.

Now all you have to do is cut them into little squares and your gnocchi are done! I mean, how easy is that? And you will feel so PROUD!"