Italian,  Pasta & Rice

Ditalini’s Family Gnocchi Recipe

Ditalini’s Aunt Joyce, a first-generation Italian-American and today the matriarch of the della Fagiolis, taught us this authentic gnocchi recipe, brought to the USA from Vittorio Veneto when the family emigrated.

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Gnocchi with meat sauce & Italian sausage

Ditalini's Family Gnocchi Recipe

  • Servings: 6-8
  • Difficulty: medium
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Ingredients

  • 5 lbs russet potatoes
  • 2 eggs, lightly beaten
  • 3 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • dash of nutmeg

Directions

Bake the potatoes in their skins until done. Using towels and a sharp knife, peel the potatoes and rice them while they’re still hot. Make a mound of the riced potatoes, then shape a depression in the middle. Add in the flour, egg, and seasonings and knead into a soft, elastic dough.

Cut off sections of the dough and roll them into long tubes about 2/3″ diameter. Cut into 1″ lengths. One at a time, roll them gently across a gnocchi paddle with your thumb and arrange the individual gnocchis on a baking pan dusted with flour. When you’ve rolled all the gnocchi, assuming you used 5 lbs of potatoes, you’ll probably have three baking pans worth. Set them aside to cool.

When ready to cook, bring lightly salted water to a boil and add the gnocchi a few at a time. They’re cooked when they rise to the surface. Remove them with a slotted spoon, drain, and place in a shallow bowl. Spoon Italian meat sauce over the cooked gnocchi, toss with the sauce, and serve with grated Parmesan cheese on the side.


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Gnocchi ingredients

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Ricing the potatoes

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Rolling the dough

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Cutting the dough

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Gnocchi paddle & thumb

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Gnocchi cooling by a pot of sauce

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