Last night Jakob and I decided to make homemade gnocchi. We still had plenty of red potatoes from Colfiorito and gnocchi, little potato dumplings, are a favorite ‘pasta’ dish of all the kids. They are not necessarily hard to make, but there are several steps involved and forming each dumpling by hand is time consuming. We started the process, boiling the potatoes for 40 minutes, at 4:00 pm. Dinner was ready by 8:00 pm (a respectable hour by Italian standards). It was a good thing I had Jakob to help me or I would still be cutting little bits of dough and shaping them into the gnocchi.
The effort was worth it. We made gnocchi alla sorrentina, a classic dish from the Bay of Naples that combines the fluffy gnocchi with a smooth tomato sauce and melted cheese. Everyone agreed that these were the best gnocchi we have ever had.