With those memories in my mind my personal amateur chef (once again Italian) and I decided to challenge our cuisine skills and to make gnocchi at home trying to remember our grandmothers’ moves.
To be honest the preparation is quite simple but it takes long and it is extremely tiring. It is important to choose the right kind of potatoes. Go for the best for boiling or mash, it will give you a smooth texture; we chose Desiree.
We boiled the potatoes (2 Kg) and mashed them.
Then we mixed the potatoes with flour (500 grams), eggs (2), a little piece of butter and a pinch of salt.
Be careful with flour, a bit too much and your gnocchi will be hard, not enough and they will break in the water.
We gently worked the mixture, then divided it in 8 parts and with each portion we prepared the little gnocchi.
Once you finish you will need to choose a dressing. We decided to go for quail sauce, prepared cooking the whole quails with wine, chicken stock, rosemary, thyme, garlic and onion, a spoon of flour.
Our final decision had to be the matching wine…and I chose a Rosso di Montalcino (Palazzo Comunale Cantina di Montalcino '07) a lower level of appellation than the Brunello, less deep or intense but still powerful and strongly fruity flavoured, with an lively acidity and a good structure.
Great satisfaction at dinner time.
Gnocchi were rich smooth and tasty and the sauce was great. Not sure if we have to thank our Italian genes or all that patient attention given to our grandmothers when we were children but the result was absolutely exquisite!
