OT Proprietary potatoes

"Ken Fortenberry" wrote in message
gy.com...
Lennie Richardson wrote:

please publish the gnocchi recipe, ken.

Potato gnocchi is just potatoes and flour, a cup of flour per pound
of potatoes. Put the potatoes in a big pot of cold water, bring to
a boil and cook the potatoes til done. This is the critical part,
knowing how long to boil the potatoes, you want them cooked through
but you don't want to cook them so long they get gummy. When the
potatoes are done, drain them and peel the skins off. This will burn
your fingers, but it's important to run the peeled potatoes through
a food mill while they're still warm. Don't try to use anything
other than a food mill, won't work. Run the potatoes through the
food mill onto a floured surface and immediately knead in about 7/8ths
of the flour. BE GENTLE !! The more you mangle this the tougher
your gnocchi will get. You want a semi-sticky mass that just holds
together, use the rest of the flour if you need to. GENTLY roll the
mass into a cylinder about 1" in diameter and then cut the cylinder
into 3/4" pieces. There's a lot of different ways to do this next
step. The point is to "dent" the surface of the gnocchi so that it
holds sauce. Some roll the gnocchi over a cheese grater, I like to
place each gnocchi on a fork and GENTLY flick it off. That's it.
All you do now is drop them into salted boiling water until they
float.

You can use any number of sauces, the simplest is just butter,
tomatoes and onion. Melt a little more than 1/2 a stick of butter
in a pot and add a 28oz. can of whole plum tomatoes (San Marzanos
if you can find them) and a sweet onion peeled and cut in half.
Simmer for about 45 min., break up the tomatoes with a wooden spoon,
remove and discard the onion, and serve over the gnocchi with a
grating of parmigiano reggiano.

That's it, potatoes and tomatoes, simple peasant fare par excellence.

--
Ken Fortenberry


That makes sense. Potatoes that are good mashed would make good gnocchi. The
gluten in the flour would bind the proteins in such potatoes better than it
would those present in a baking potato. I bet those same "proprietary"
potatoes would not be as good for french fries as a big old Idaho baking
potato.

Lennie Richardson wrote:

That makes sense. Potatoes that are good mashed would make good gnocchi. The
gluten in the flour would bind the proteins in such potatoes better than it
would those present in a baking potato. I bet those same "proprietary"
potatoes would not be as good for french fries as a big old Idaho baking
potato.

Good gnocchi potatoes are usually the "waxy boiling potato" varieties.
Idaho bakers end up too mealy for gnocchi and new potatoes boil up so
wet you end up using so much flour you may as well be making dumplings.
I make decent mashed potatoes with Yukon Golds (Idaho bakers) but I think
the Klondike Rose is better.

The Klondike Rose is marketed as a superior roasting potato, and it
does roast up quite nicely. Cut them in big wedges, toss with butter
and herbs and stick them in a 425 degree oven for a half hour. Good
"fries". I haven't actually deep fried any of them yet, that will be
interesting.

--
Ken Fortenberry