Gnocchi | Basics with Babish

[Music] basics with babish and my website basics with babish comm or brought to you by Squarespace head there now to check out all the recipes from the show kitchen equipment lists and more get 10% off your first Squarespace order by visiting squarespace.com slash babish from websites and online stores to marketing tools and analytics Squarespace is the all-in-one platform to build a beautiful online presence and run your business alright folks so today we're conquering one of my all-time greatest fears and making us some yogi the most traditional recipe for which starts out with potatoes this is a great use for leftover potatoes but if you're starting from scratch we're gonna poke these all over with a fork otherwise they might explode apparently and then once we've washed all the potato juice off of our person we're going to get these in a 375-degree fahrenheit oven for about an hour after which time these skins should be crisp and the interiors easily pierced with your potato piercer of choice and now comes the somewhat laborious task of removing the skins using a clean dish towel so as to protect your delicate skin covered hands we're gonna remove the skins from these potatoes this is gonna allow more steam to escape less steam equals less moisture and less moisturi equals lighter fluffier gnocchi now once they've cooled off a little bit you can just pass them through a potato ricer but if you're like me and you can't find your potato ricer you can cool the potatoes in the fridge for a few hours and then pass them through the fine holes of your favorite cheese grater but again this process is much easier to faster if you just use a ricer once you've got your potatoes broken down into fluffy little bits we want to measure them I've got about 500 grams of rice to potatoes in this rimmed baking sheet so for every 500 grams of potatoes we want to add one beaten egg yolk go ahead and spread that out as evenly as possible and then we want to sift about 100 grams of all-purpose flour overtop all the potatoes then it's a matter of bringing this all together into a bowl of dough in the least traumatic way possible I like to use a bench scraper to sort of chop and mix everything up to make sure that the egg and flour are evenly distributed and then start using your hands to press it into one cohesive mass once formed were gonna start kneading now kneading is really the process that's gonna determine how tough or how tender your gnocchi are just remember the more you knead the tougher they'll bead but if early on you surrender then they'll be tender I like my gnocchi to be ever so slightly to the soon so I ended up needing for about 90 seconds either way once the dough is smooth and no streaks of egg remain we're gonna roll it out into a fat little log and cut it into four even pieces then we're gonna sift some all-purpose flour out onto our work surface and grab one of our dough segments and begin rolling it out into a rope about one-inch thick just keep pressing down on any pudgy spots until it's nice and even and long like it is then using a bench scraper or sharp knife we're going to cut these into little dumplings the size is kind up to you I kind of like big old yokes but there you have it as far as making yogi that's about all there is to it the only step remaining is contending with the shape you can totally just keep it like this in its native pillow shaped form factor or another popular route is to simply roll them into a ball these two shapes work particularly well for extra thick rich sauces but if you're going with more subtle flavors and you want your gnocchi to have sauce catching abilities it might be a good idea to introduce some nooks and crannies the easiest way to do this is to just poke it with your finger introducing a nice deep divot into the center of the gnocchi or you can go for the all-time classic gnocchi shape and press it against the tines of a fork using your thumb to press the dumpling down and across the fork tines both creating ridges on the outside of the gnocchi and creating a cool little sauce divot in the back where the gnocchi is folded and there you have it four perfectly acceptable and functional ways to shape your Italian dumps your dumplings your Italian dumplings anyway I'm gonna go ahead and rinse and repeat with the rest of this dough because it's kind of mesmerizing to look at roll it out chop it up x times x times x times x einstein's I'm gonna dust them all down with a little bit of extra sifted flour to keep them from sticking and these guys are ready to cook or alternately you could pop this whole tray in the freezer let these guys solidify completely about one hour shovel them off the frozen surface using a long thin spatula and then just tag them and bag them these frozen yogya are ready to cook at a moment's notice they'll just require maybe 30 extra seconds in the boiling water now the other very popular and much more forgiving way to make gnocchi is with ricotta cheese I'm using about 1 pound 450 grams of full fat ricotta which I'm gonna take the optional step to drain in a cheesecloth set in the colander set in a glass bowl I'm topping with cheese with plastic wrap topping the plastic wrap with another smaller bowl and filling that bowl with something heavy we're just gonna apply nice even pressure to the cheese as it hangs out in the fridge for at least eight hours like I said this step is totally optional it's just gonna remove a little excess way from your ricotta and less moisture equals lighter fluffier resultant and yoky I'm just gonna show myself dumping this way out of the bowl because I'm about to dump the cheese back into the bowl and I don't want to confuse you the viewer so into a large bowl goes our drained ricotta one large egg about three ounces or one small fluffy mountain of grated Parmesan and optionally depending on how you're gonna use the gnocchi a little grating of nutmeg nutmeg plays real nice with most Italian dishes so I say just go for it then this is no job for a tiny whisk we got to bring in a regular-sized whisk and beat these guys together until they're nice and smooth and then we're starting with about 150 grams of sifted all-purpose flour you might need more so keep that sifter at the ready then using a rubber spatula we're gonna gently fold this mixture together until it becomes a cohesive mass if it feels a little bit too sticky sift in a little bit more flour once it's no longer sticking to your hands of the spatula we want to knead it until it's nice and uniform and no dry streaks of flour remain but just like the potato gnocchi take care not to over knead it otherwise you're gonna have tough and yolks and then from here the procedure is pretty much exactly the same divide cuts shape and place on a floured rimmed baking sheet from there again you can optionally freeze otherwise these guys are ready to cook which is what we're finally gonna do with them I'm gonna demonstrate three of my favorite and yogi saucing options today is starting with a brown butter sage sauce first into a large saute pan goes about 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter that we're going to melt and begin to brown browning butter takes a little bit of practice just keep swirling it until the milk fats separate and begin to turn a light toasty golden color like this at this point both to add flavor and to halt the cooking process we're gonna add in a handful of finely chopped shallots letting those sweat it out for about a minute until they have a little bit of color on them at which point we're gonna add a big handful of freshly torn sage as well as 2 or 3 cloves of garlic either chopped or just crushed like this if you want to keep it rustic once everybody's nice and soft and fragrant we're gonna take that off the heat to prevent anybody from burning drop our gnocchi into our pot of boiling salted water that we've had ready this whole time because the gnocchi are only gonna take about 90 seconds to cook we know that they're done when they start to pop up to the surface at which point we're gonna fish them out using a mesh spider and dump them directly into our saute pan don't worry about draining off too much pasta water the pasta water is going to play an instrumental role in the creation of our sauce first let's give the yolks a little toss in the pan to make sure that they're coated with all that brown butter and herbs then we're gonna kill the heat under the pan and take some steps to emulsify the sauce we're gonna add three things about three tablespoons of cold unsalted butter three to four ounces of grated Parmesan cheese and maybe just shy of a quarter cup of the pasta cooking water which is loaded with starch give this thing a few spirited tosses that's going to emulsify and aerate the sauce and watch as it goes from looking kind of oily and dry to creamy and positively luxurious be sure of course the seasoned with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste and feel free to add a little bit more pasta cooking water if you feel like it's getting a little bit too gloopy give everything one last toss and there you have it a rich decadent deeply savory and Irby creamy exemplary use for homemade gnocchi finish it off with a little bit more freshly ground pepper and some freshly grated Parmesan and then it's time to dig in now this is one of the more technically complicated ways to make gnocchi it takes a good sense of timing otherwise you could break the sauce but I promise you it is worth the effort however there are some lower effort sauces that we can get into this one's gonna be a spin on the like Gurian pasta with potatoes and pesto since yogi is you know potato pasta so we're gonna start by making a very simple fresh pesto out of about a quarter cup of toasted pine nuts a cup and a half packed fresh basil leaves two cloves of chopped garlic 2 ounces of grated Parmesan and maybe about a third of a cup of high-quality olive oil we're combining this in the bowl of a food processor along with a pinch of kosher salt and a few twists of freshly ground black pepper and frosting on high speed until we have a nice creamy emulsified pesto go ahead and taste that for seasoning before we head on over to the stovetop where we've got our trusty pot of water already at the boil into which we're gonna dump some sliced green beans that we're gonna blanch for about two minutes before retrieving and placing warm saute pan off heat then were to cook our gnocchi as usual plop those the top of green beans pile our fresh pesto over top hit it with about 1/4 cup of pasta cooking water and toss the whole thing together which is going to give us a nice creamy sauce songs any actual cream this is another flavorful and bracing sauce that works really well with gnocchi plus you got maybe half a dozen green beans in there so it's totally healthy right oh if there's one thing that gnocchi isn't it is diets friendly and if you really want to crank the dial into cheap meal territory then we got to talk yoky with gorgonzola cream sauce first into a medium wide sauce pan we're gonna pour about a cup and a half of heavy cream bring that guy to a rolling simmer and stir frequently for about 15 to 20 minutes or until it's reduced by half then we're gonna crank the heat way down low and add about four ounces of crumbled gorgonzola Dolce with an optional bonus 2 ounces of grated Parmesan but a decidedly not optional about quarter teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg whisk those together over very low heat until everybody has melted and corporated be sure to season with a kosher salt and freshly ground pepper then we're gonna cover this guy and keep him warm while we prepare the gnocchi we've already got our pot of salted water at the boil and right next door we're gonna heat a large nonstick fry pan with a little bit of vegetable oil over medium-high heat until the oil begins to shimmer if you timed it right then yoki should just be starting to pop up to the surface so we're gonna fish him out try to shake off as much excess water as possible and dump them into our preheated pan we're gonna try to place them all into one even layer making sure that everybody's in contact with the pan and leaving it undisturbed for two to three minutes come on straggler no man gets left behind let these guys sit without moving them around so they develop a nice brown crust for you see we are making fried gnocchi right before flipping I'm gonna hit them with a little bit more best oil just to make sure that they don't stick let's give the old pan a little toss and take a look at that color these guys are gonna be soft and pillowy on one side and browned and crisp on the other we're just gonna add some really nice texture to what's normally a pretty gloopy and gluey dish we're adding about a little KS and FGP tossing to coat and then beginning to plate up first fill a bowl with your little half fried pillows and then drizzle the gorgonzola cream sauce over top boy that's a nice sentence then if you're really a nutmeg freak like me I'm gonna top it with a little more freshly grated nutmeg and if your cheese freak like me a little bit of extra grated cheese and if you're a parsley freak like me a little freshly chopped parsley did bring some color and contrast to the dish and this friends is pretty out of control the sauce is incredibly funky and sharp from the gorgonzola but it's balanced out both by the warmth of the nutmeg and the textural contrast from the fried gnocchi and as you can see I'm pretty happy with what I made here try it yourself just make sure you do some cardio before after or during this episode and many others have been sponsored by Squarespace because they've been an amazing partner in both bringing this show and my websites to life they've got a really intuitive easy-to-use platform that made it super easy for someone like me who's never done web design ever they have templates they do 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Channel: Babish Culinary Universe

Views: 3,493,124

Rating: 4.9678054 out of 5

Keywords: binging with babish, basics with babish, babbish, cooking with babish, pear qwerty horse, gnocchi, how to make gnocchi, how to make gnocchi at home, gnocchi recipe, homemade gnocchi, homemade gnocchi recipe, homemade gnocchi 4 ways, babish gnocchi, homemade pasta, easy gnocchi, easy gnocchi recipe

Id: LMJrLc13SuI

Length: 12min 22sec (742 seconds)

Published: Thu May 07 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/quartamilk]

Nice