Tender Vegan Gnocchi
Servings 4
Ingredients
- 900 g russet potatoes
- ¾ cup spelt flour
Instructions
- Pierce potatoes with a pairing knife and bake slowly on a rack in a 350°F oven for approximately 1½ to 1¾ hrs or until a pairing knife or wooden skewer can be inserted and withdrawn without picking up the potato.
- Cut the potatoes in half lengthwise immediately after removing them from the oven by holding with a glove or tongs. Remove all flesh and discard jackets.
- Press warm potato flesh through a ricer or a food mill and spread out on a work surface to allow moisture to continue to escape for a few minutes.
- Gather potato flesh together so that there is no space between the riced potato and sift approximately 2/3 of the flour (1/2 cup as per original recipe) over the potato.
- Cut the flour into the potato flesh using a pastry blender or a bench scraper and gather into a smaller area than initially.
- Sift most of the remaining flour over the potato mixture and continue to cut in the flour and gather into an even smaller area.
- Fold the dough in half and press down without stretching and repeat just enough times to fully blend the flour and potato. Add the remaining flour only if the dough remains sticky. You should ideally stop when the dough is just slightly sticky, to know that you have not over-worked the mixture. Over-working the dough will develop the gluten too much and result in a tougher gnocchi and under-working will result in gnocchi that may fall apart when cooked.
- Form a gnocchi-sized piece of dough into a ball and roll with your finger on a gnocchi board or over the back of a fork to test for moisture content. Press the gnocchi against the board or fork as you roll it to create the indentation on one side (you can see this in the photos in our post). The goal is for the gnocchi to roll nicely without sticking either to the board/fork or your finger. If you need to add a little flour, do so before proceeding to the next step.
- Form the dough into a small log of about 3 to 4 inches in diameter and let rest for for a few minutes.
- Slice off a 1 inch piece off of the log and form this with the least amount of working into a ½ to ¾ inch diameter rope on a flour-dusted work surface, dusting with additional flour only as required to prevent sticking.
- Cut ropes into about ¾ inch pieces and roll on a gnocchi board or the back of a fork. This step is optional as described in the post.
- Lightly dust the formed gnocchi to prevent them from sticking together.
- Repeat the steps 10 through 12 until all gnocchi has been formed.
- Bring a large pot of salted water (1 tbsp of sea salt for every quart of water) to a boil and drop gnocchi into the water in batches. Remove gnocchi with a strainer or slotted spoon once they have floated to the surface and quickly cool in ice water to stop them from cooking further before placing them on a towel to dry.
