Potato Gnocchi with Basil Pesto

Mmmmm... gnocchi.

Gnocchi is the Italian version of dumplings, and they are delicious. The best gnocchi are light and fluffy. Too often you see dense and heavy gnocchi, and are the kind that just sit in your stomach like a brick. But, the recipe below, which is an adaptation of a Cook's Illustrated recipe, is not that way. Properly made, it is wonderfully light and quite pleasant.

Here are some tips:

• Once you add the flour, do not overknead the gnocchi. This is key because the more you knead the gnocchi dough, the tougher it gets, and less light and fluffy it will be to eat. In fact, I barely knead it all - I mostly just try to mix until the ingredients come together.
  
• Use a potato ricer instead of a masher. This is actually quite important unless you just destroy the potatoes with the masher. The reason why is that it is very difficult to roll the gnocchi into a long strings if there are any lumps at all. Hence, using a ricer is important. Also, it helps the potatoes cool more quickly.
• Do not boil or steam the potatoes. Instead, bake. I know that boiling and steaming is a more conventional form of cooking potatoes, but you don't want to add any more water than you need to the potatoes. One of the tricky parts of gnocchi is getting the dough to the right consistency, and added water by boiling/steaming makes this much harder to do. Also, you'll have to add more water make the dough the right consistency, and that means you'll be making tougher gnocchi.
• Start with less flour and add more only if needed. The ideal consistency is one that holds together well, but does not stick to the rolling surface. It should almost be tacky, but not really sticky. The ability to judge the appropriate level of sticky-ness comes really only through experience. (If you bake breads from scratch, you'll have a leg up).
  
• Keep the work surface very clean. Dough obviously sticks to hands. But, dough really sticks to other dough. So, use a metal scrapper or anything you can to keep your rolling surface as clean as you can. I usually scrape it totally clean between batches.
  
• Practice, practice, practice. Let making anything recipe that involves a dough, only through practice will you get really good at making gnocchi. It is somewhat of an art because you have to learn how to judge the consistency and wetness of the dough. But, you can learn it through practice.

Anyways, enough comments! Here is the recipe! It serves about 4.

2 lb russet potatoes
1 egg
1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt

4 ounces fresh basil leaves
2 cloves garlic
1 ounce pine nuts, lightly toasted
4 ounces extra-virgin olive oil
4 ounces parmiggiano-reggiano, grated
Freshly ground black pepper
Salt, to taste

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Bake potatoes until a metal skewer slides easily through them, 45 minutes to 1 hour, depending on size.

Hold potato with a pot holder or kitchen towel and peel it with a vegetable peeler or paring knife. Rice peeled potato into a large bowl. Peel and rice remaining potatoes. Cool until potatoes are no longer hot, about 15 minutes.

Sprinkle 1 1/4 cups flour and 1 teaspoon salt over warm potatoes. Using your hands, work mixture into a soft, smooth dough. If dough is sticky (which is often the case), add more flour as needed, up to 1 1/2 cups total.

Roll about one-quarter of dough into a long 3/4-inch-thick rope. If rope won’t hold together, return it to bowl with remaining dough and work in more flour as needed. Repeat until all dough is rolled. Cut each rope of dough into 3/4-inch lengths. Let the gnocchi rest while you make the pesto

Put the basil, garlic and pine nuts into a food processor. You may need to do this in two batches, depending on the size of your processor bowl. Turn the processor on and slowly drizzle in the olive oil (or half the oil, if doing two batches). Once all of the basil is processed, put the mixture into one bowl and add in the parmiggiano and black pepper. Taste the mixture and see if it needs salt. If it does, only a little and then taste again. The reason why is that the parmiggiano brings a lot of salt to the mixture, so the pesto will need less than you think.

Bring 4 quarts of water to low boil in large pot. Add 2 teaspoons salt or to taste. Add about one-third of the gnocchi and cook until they float, 1 1/2 to 2 minutes (about 3 minutes for frozen gnocchi). Retrieve gnocchi with slotted spoon and transfer to warm, shallow serving bowl or platter. Repeat cooking process with remaining gnocchi. Gently toss gnocchi with pesto and serve immediately.