Garlic Gnocchi with Shony

Fancy trying something adventurous with leftover potatoes? Enjoy gnocci with a seaweed twist.

Serves 4
Time 20 mins prep, 25 mins cooking
Medium

Thanks to the lovely Linda in Latvia for allowing us to share her recipe for seaweed gnocchi. Linda tells us,

"Experimenting with the best taste combinations for Italian potato dumplings led me to a solution using my most beloved products – black garlic and seaweed. A sauce, suitable to black garlic gnocchi, is still in the making. But seaweed gnocchi goes perfectly with already familiar tomato-based sauces." 

INGREDIENTS

• 3 tbsp Shony
• 600g peeled, baked potatoes
• 2 duck eggs (or 1 S or M sized chicken egg + one yolk)
• 2-3 cloves garlic, minced
• 150g white wheat flour or sifted wholegrain wheat flour
• Several pinches smoked salt

METHOD

1. Wash the potatoes if necessary. The floury varieties tend to crack while boiling – if they're dirty, mud may squeeze through these cracks.

2. Boil the potatoes unpeeled, until tender. When ready, drain the excess water.

3. While the potatoes are still hot, peel them and lay them out on a baking tray with a sheet of parchment paper laid on top of it. Place the potatoes in the oven pre-heated to 180°C, for 5-10 minutes

4. Cool the potatoes down a bit and then put them in a potato press or mash them, but do not blend them otherwise they tend to become slippery.

5. Sift the flour onto the potato and add the garlic, eggs, Shony and several pinches of smoked salt. Mix it all but avoid processing it for too long. Let the batter rest for 15 minutes.

6. Prepare the gnocchi. Scatter a clean work surface with flour. If the batter is so sticky that it is impossible to work with, add a little more flour, but keep in mind that the less flour you use, the better. Divide the batter into several parts and roll them in approximately 1cm wide rolls; then slice the rolls into 2cm long pieces.

7. Make a dumpling of each of the rolled pieces and slide a fork around it. This is for both aesthetic and practical purposes. The sauce clings to the gnocchi surface much better if it has been jagged by the fork.

8. Boil a large quantity of water in a pot and add salt to it. Carefully slide the gnocchi into the bubbling brine and cook them for about 2 minutes, counting from the moment when the gnocchi rise to the surface. If the gnocchi do not surface quickly, it is possible that they have been stuck to the base of the pot – in this case, stir them gently with a spoon.

9. When ready, strain the gnocchi and mix into sauce of your choice.

Read the original recipe in Latvian.