Gluten-Free Potato Gnocchi with Oven-Baked Tomato Sauce
Fluffy hand-cut gluten-free gnocchi ladled into a blistered oven-baked tomato sauce that made itself while you worked - showered in parmesan and baked again if you're feeling it.
Serves: 4
Prep time: 30 minutes, plus 1 hour roasting
Cook time: 45 minutes
INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 floury potatoes (such as Sebago or Desiree)
2 eggs, lightly beaten
350g gluten-free plain flour, plus extra to dust
cornflour, for dusting (optional)
olive oil, for frying (optional)
salt, for seasoning
For the tomato sauce
1 onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, sliced
1 x 800g tin crushed tomatoes
1 punnet cherry tomatoes
1/2 cup white wine
1 handful basil leaves
3 tablespoons olive oil
salt, for seasoning
grated parmesan, to serve
METHOD
Preheat the oven to 180C. Pierce the skin of the potatoes all over and place them on a tray. Roast for 1 hour, or until tender and the skin is wrinkly.
Meanwhile, make the sauce. In a baking dish, combine the onion, garlic, crushed tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, white wine, basil, olive oil and a good pinch of salt. Stir together and place in the oven alongside the potatoes. Bake for about 45 minutes, until bubbly, blistered and reduced, giving it a stir once or twice.
Cut the potatoes in half and allow the steam to escape - this dries them out, which is what keeps the gnocchi light. Once cool enough to handle, push the potato through a potato ricer, mash, or food mill so it's very evenly and finely mashed.
Place the mashed potato in a flattish mound on a clean bench - a stone bench is ideal. Begin working the flour in by sprinkling a little on top and folding the potato up and over with your hands. A really nice way to do this is with a bench scraper, using a cutting technique where you almost chop the flour in, then scoop and fold it back over itself, then chop it back across the other way.
When you've used about half the flour, make a small pond in the middle and fill it with the beaten egg. Slowly chop the egg in as well. Move quickly if some egg escapes and you haven't built the wall high enough - just keep chopping and adding flour until the dough comes together.
Unlike a pizza or bread dough, you want to be a lot more gentle here, keeping the lightness and the fluff and not activating the starches. Continue forming it until it becomes a smooth, fluffy, hollow-sounding mound - if you tap it, it should sound hollow. Cover it and move it to the side.
Sprinkle a little flour to the side and place the dough there under a cloth. Break off small half-cup chunks to roll at a time, so it stays manageable. Gently roll each into a sausage shape - doing this on baking paper makes it easy to transfer and relocate to another tray.
Dust with a very fine cornflour if you like, or just leave them on the baking paper. Keep your scraper or knife wiped with a damp cloth if the mixture builds up, so you retain nice sharp cuts. From here you can cut little cylinder tablets, or cut as wide as the log so you end up with square pillows (squish the sides slightly if you like), or cut on the diagonal. It's common to roll each gnocchi against a fork for ridges to catch extra sauce, but there's no shame in eating extra sauce and gnocchi with a spoon.
To cook, bring a large pot of heavily salted water to a rapid boil and cook in batches of about 10-15 at a time. Wait for them to float, then remove with a slotted spoon - this works from fresh or frozen. The water must return to a rapid boil before you start the next batch. Alternatively, warm some olive oil in a large frying pan and place the gnocchi into the hot oil in a single layer, letting the pan heat brown the sides into crispy edges. If they're very big, add a couple of tablespoons of water and cover with a lid to wet-fry like potstickers, letting them come away from the pan naturally rather than lifting with a spatula, as they may break apart.
Ladle the cooked gnocchi straight into the blistered tomato sauce and fold through gently. Shower with grated parmesan and, if you like, return to the oven for a further 10 minutes until the cheese is melted and bubbling.
HINTS
To freeze, arrange the gnocchi in a single layer on a tray and freeze until solid, then loosen them and tip into a bag - they keep for 3 months and cook straight from frozen.
Let the roasted potato steam off properly before mashing - a drier potato needs less flour, and less flour means lighter gnocchi.
When pan-frying, wait for the gnocchi to release from the pan on their own before turning - forced early with a spatula, they tear. This same wet-fry method is a great way to cook store-bought shelf-stable, fresh or frozen gnocchi too.
NUTRITION (per recipe total, serves 4 - guide only):
Energy: approximately 9400kJ (2245 calories)
Protein: 60g
Fat: 60g
Saturated fat: 12g
Carbohydrates: 370g
Sugars: 35g
Fibre: 22g
Sodium: 900mg
Note: parmesan for serving estimated modestly; excludes any extra.
This nutrition information is a guide only and may vary depending on brands, exact quantities, and ingredient substitutions used.