Gnocchi Sans Gluten

It's Friday, Friday, Gonna Get Down On Friday!

I'll shut up now :)

I don't have classes Friday afternoons, so this is the time I do the "heavy-duty" cooking that needs to happen for next week. Aka: the stuff that takes a while to make and uses just about every pan, utensil and dish in my kitchen.

I'm a big fan of Italian food, and one of my favorite things that I can no longer eat is gnocchi. Those little dumplings just make me all sorts of happy :) I keep checking the labels in the grocery store, in vain, for some wheat free gnocchi... but apparently that's one thing that hasn't been translated over yet. So for my heavy-duty cooking this week I made gnocchi!

Gnocchi (Makes ~ 8 dozen)

~2.5 lbs Yukon Gold Potatoes, peeled and sliced

3 Cups Rice Flour

2 Eggs, beaten

Salt - to taste

First off, remove all rings, watches and bracelets... you'll thank me later. Otherwise, enjoy picking bits of potato out of your jewelry...

Boil your potatoes in salted water until they can be easily poked through with a fork, reserve about 1 Cup of the potato water. Using a potato masher (or a potato ricer, if you've got fancy kitchen stuff) squish the potatoes until there aren't any chunks left. Put the flour, eggs, 1/2 Tbsp salt and potatoes into a really big bowl. Knead it together, with your scrupulously clean hands, until it forms into a big ball. If it's too sticky add more flour, if it's too dry add a little of the potato water you reserved earlier. 

You can see my dough was a bit sticky, so I had to add some more flour...

Grab an orange sized chunk of the potato dough and roll it into a snake...  you know, like you made with play-dough in kindergarten. It should be around 1/2" wide.

Then you're going to cut the rope up into 1/2" chunks and boop them on the head squish them a bit with a fork so they have a cute little pattern on top. (I seriously said "boop" every time I squished one, it makes it a bit more interesting :D ) I put mine onto waxed paper lined baking sheets.

Now you're left with two options: cook them now or store them in the fridge for a while.

If you want to cook them right now, put them into boiling salted water and cook for around 3 minutes. They'll float to the top when they're done.

Serving suggestions: spaghetti sauce or just a little bit of butter and garlic. 

Edit: I tried freezing these and then thawing them after a few weeks, it was a disaster... :( It could be because the gnocchi I made were too dry, but more likely the lack of gluten means the starch doesn't bind together as well