Sorrento is a municipality in Campania near Naples that, among other legacies and illustrious figures, has given Italian gastronomy this popular recipe. There are two ways to prepare this recipe: making the gnocchi yourself or buying them already made. If you don't have time, you can buy the gnocchi but if you like to experiment you will see that it is very easy to make them using potatoes and flour.
Although they are made with potatoes, gnocchi are considered pasta and have the same use as it.
INGREDIENTS (4 people):
To make the gnocchi:
- 1 kg (2.2 pounds) of potatoes
- 300 grams (10.5 oz) of hard semolina flour (the one is used to make pasta)
- Salt
Rest of ingredients:
- 500 grams (1.1 pounds) of crushed tomato
- 5 fresh basil leaves
- 1 clove garlic
- Salt
- Extra virgin olive oil
- 300 grams (10.5 oz) of mozzarella
- 50 grams (1.8 oz) of Parmesan cheese
If you choose to prepare the gnocchi, first boil the potatoes in the skin until they are soft. It usually takes between 30 and 40 minutes. Check that they are soft by sticking a fork.
While the potatoes cook we are going to prepare the tomato sauce. In a frying pan we pour a little oil and fry the garlic clove. When it is browned, we remove it, then pour in the crushed tomato without skin or seeds. Add the basil leaves and half a teaspoon of salt and let it cook for half an hour.
When the potatoes are cooked, we remove the skin and mash them with the food processor. We pass the flour through the sieve to avoid lumps and mix it with the potato pulp, half a teaspoon of salt and the egg. We knead well until we obtain a homogeneous dough. At that time we make a thick thread half a centimeter thick (0.2 inches) and cut it into small pieces of 1 or 2 centimeters (0.4-0.8 inches) in length.
Now we must boil the gnocchi because the flour is still raw. To prevent this from happening, we pour them into a saucepan with water that has just boiled but without bubbling. We leave them 2 or 3 minutes watching that they do not fall apart.
In a container that can be baked, paint the bottom with a little tomato sauce. Next we add the gnochi, another layer of sauce, the mozzarella cut into pieces and a little Parmesan, and again the sauce-gnocchi-cheese, always ending with the cheese. We preheat the oven to 220 degrees Celsius (428 F) in grill mode and keep it until the surface is well browned.
They are always served very hot.