Today we talk about potato gnocchi to which I added chestnut flour to give a more rustic and autumnal touch to this popular recipe. Chestnut flour can be used for both sweet and savory preparations, just like in this case. The gnocchi with chestnut flour are made with a base dough of potatoes, a minimal percentage of chestnut flour, durum wheat semolina (but common white 00 flour can also be used) and do not contain eggs. They are very easy to prepare, have a delicate taste and can be paired with simple seasonings that do not completely cover their aroma and flavor. Potato gnocchi with chestnut flour pair well with other typical autumn flavors, such as walnuts, hazelnuts, mushrooms, radicchio, and so on. I’ll explain how I prepared them.
- Difficulty: Very easy
- Cost: Medium
- Rest time: 30 Minutes
- Preparation time: 15 Minutes
- Portions: 3
- Cooking methods: Stovetop
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Autumn
Ingredients
- 1 cup cup durum wheat semolina
- 1/2 cup cup chestnut flour
- 1 lb lb red potatoes (yellow flesh)
- 1 pinch fine salt
Tools
- 1 Potato Ricer
Steps
Wash and boil the potatoes with the skin. When they are cooked, peel them (be careful not to burn yourself) and mash them with a potato ricer.
Let the potato puree cool for about half an hour, trying to spread it as much as possible on a flat plate to evaporate excess moisture and prevent it from accumulating in our gnocchi.
After the time has passed, sift the durum wheat semolina and chestnut flour together in a large bowl, add half of the potato puree, a generous pinch of salt, and start kneading. As the flours are absorbed, add more potato puree until you get a firm but not hard dough, easy to work with.
It may not be necessary to add all the potatoes, so I recommend adding them little by little.
Let the obtained dough rest, covered with plastic wrap, in the fridge for about half an hour, this way it will be much easier and simpler to make the gnocchi.
Let’s form the gnocchi. Flour the work table and break off pieces – more or less the same weight – from the dough, lightly flour them and make cylinders approximately 8 inches long; work them gently with the palms of your hands, without squeezing them. Cut small gnocchi from the cylinders (in the photos the gnocchi are roughly the size of a hazelnut) which we will flour and roll with the tips of our fingers, on the cut side, always using great delicacy.
Heat some water and when it boils, salt it, let it come back to a boil and throw in our gnocchi. Cover, let it come back to a boil and drain them as soon as they come to the surface (those in the photo took about 2 minutes) and dress them with the chosen sauce. To check the degree of cooking of our gnocchi it is always good to taste them.
The cooking time depends on the size of the gnocchi. The larger they are, the longer it will take to cook them perfectly.
Bon appetit
