Gather around, scrubs. It's time for gnocchi

A while back some user made a post about having too much parsley. This is what you can do with that extra parsley, or basil, or cilantro, or whatever. This thread will demonstrate how to create a pesto and some potato gnocchi to serve it on.

have you tried gnocchi with beurre noisette infused with sage? shit's so good

Did you literally just cut your gnocchi up into squares? Fucking hell...

First thing we do is grind up our parsley. The pic is blurry as fuck, but I've probably got about 1 1/2 cups of parsley in this mortar. You can sub any green herb, or add anything to flavor it as you please. To this I'll be adding garlic cloves, pecans, parmigiano cheese, olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste.

The fuck out of here with that bullshit.

Here I've got the parsley pretty well beaten and ground and have tossed in the garlic. Use as much as you want, and then pound it into the parsley. The next ingredient is the pecans, but use what you want or have on hand. Almonds work great, and peanuts go awesome with basil pesto. Next comes the parmigiano, and as the paste starts to thicken due to the addition of the ingredients, you just add some olive oil to thin it out a bit and make it easier to grind / mix.

Haven't tried that combo yet as I'm not a real big fan of butter sauces.

>gnocchi al pesto
I love you

Once you have all your ingredients ground and mixed together, than slowly mix in olive oil a little at a time until you get the consistency that you want. Finally, season with salt and pepper. Remember that you can always add more olive oil to thin it out later, so don't make it too soupy. It should be thin enough so it can be used as a spread on bread without clumping, but not so thin that it looks like olive oil...with parsley in it.

The ratio of ingredients is all up to you, and you can always add more to meet your taste. This CAN be done in a food process, but apparently if you get the herbs too hot it changes the color and flavor, so use the pulse setting to chop up your herb rather than just blast it on full.

It's good stuff, user.

Once you get it where you want it, jar it and store it in the fridge, or freeze it until you need it for your meals.

This stuff is great on bread, brings scrambled eggs and omelettes to a whole new level, goes great on beef and pork, and of course all kinds of pasta.

Next comes the gnocchi.

The recipe for potato gnocchi is as follows:
4 parts potato to 1 part flour
1 beaten egg
salt to taste

The potato you want to use should be starchy, but I've made gnocchi with red, white, and in this pick, a russet potato, and it always turns out fine.

Here I'm using an extra russet potato that I baked a couple days ago and had in the fridge. I sliced it up and steamed it for a bit to heat it up and make it easier to peel, then I ran it through this metal strainer with a spoon. This is important because you want the consistency of the potato to be kind of grainy, as opposed to simply mashed. Italians use something called a potato ricer to do this, but the strainer method works well enough for me. You can use potato right out of the oven, or freshly boiled for this, of course, and they should be warm when you make this dish.

Here you can see how the potato made small grains after being pushed through the sifter. This is what you want, and it's what will make the gnocchi lite and airy when you make the dough.

Total weight of the potato was about 400 g's, so I'll be adding 100 g's of AP flour, and one beaten egg. A good rule of thumb is that for every 400 g's of potato, use one egg to add moisture and hold it all together.

I start off by simply folding in all the ingredients in the bowl with a spoon. This isn't like a bread or pasta dough where you want to work the hell out of it, but more like a biscuit dough or pastry dough where you want to work just enough to mix everything thoroughly and just enough to hold itself together.

At this stage it's ready to be worked by hand.

Work the dough by hand just until it comes together and won't fall apart. Gnocchi should be lite and airy, and if you work the dough too much, it'll turn out tough and chewy...which is ass. Here you can see that the dough holds together, but it's not completely smooth, which is exactly what you want.

Now it's time to roll them out and make the gnocchi.

Roll out your dough into anywhere from one to two finger widths, depending on how big you want your gnocchi. Don't be afraid to use flour, as it will stay on the outside and won't effect the end result. If your dough breaks apart and can't be made into a thin roll like this, then you need to add more flour and knead your dough ball some more until it can, as if it can't keep it's form here, then it won't keep it's shape when you try to boil it and will just dissolve in the water.

Next, flour up a knife and cut your dough to the size you want. I make mine about a finger width or so, but some like them smaller.

Once you've got them cut, you can form them as you desire. Here I've just used my finger to poke a depression in them, but you can use a fork to make ridges, roll them into balls, or just cook them as is without making any changes. Ridges and depressions just help to trap more of the sauce you use, which is why people add them to their gnocchi.

Heat up a pot of water to a nice rolling boil and add salt to the water. Add your gnocchi, and once it surfaces, give it a minute or two to cook up. It doesn't take long, so don't over-cook it, and make sure to check the bottom of the pot for any that might have gotten stuck.

While the gnocchi is cooking, ladle out some of the cooking liquid into a hot pan, and add some of your fresh pesto.

Add cooking liquid or pesto as needed until you get enough and at the consistency you want, and if it's too soupy, just cook off some of the liquid until it thickens up to your liking.

Add your gnocchi straight to the sauce pan.

Mix your gnocchi in the pan, then plate. Garnish with some fresh parsley or basil, and with a touch of fresh grated parmigiano.

Done.

nice work. looks good

I do this with sweet potatoes in the fall, such a perfect fall dish.

Aw man I just made this with my Italian pops he wanted to impart the cooking of his family's best cooks his grandma and great uncle. His basil pesto is amazing too, really the secret is just add a FUCKTON of pine nuts it comes out smooth and flavorful. He had me add some ricotta to the potato gnocchi dough too not too much.

Thanks, user.
>pine nuts
Those little fuckers are expensive as shit here for some reason. Pecans and almonds are cheaper, so I usually use those instead.

They are expensive as shit everywhere because it's so much of an investment to grow and harvest them and then they're popular as fuck so if you're not near the source you're paying up the ass for them.

But they're sooo worth it.

>But they're sooo worth it.
Nah...almonds are better imo.

Very informative and looks tasty as fuck. I just made my first dumplings today and would like to make more in the future. I will have to take a stab at gnocchi next time around.

This was quality stuff. I wanna try it. Make puttanesca next time. Maybe I will make a thread like this with something I am good at cooking.

might try this tomorrow, thanks bud

good recipe

Gonna make this later, thanks OP.

Show pics when done.