Homemade Gnocchi With Bacon In Creamy Sauce
Writing about Sharon Cuneta praising daughter Frankie’s culinary skills where the latter made delicious food that included homemade gnocchi reminded me of the homemade gnocchi I made back in 2015. I have a gnocchi dish written already but I’ve used packaged gnocchis. If you want to learn how to make homemade ones, this post is for you. Gnocchi is basically potato pasta but in Italian cuisine is called dumpling because the main ingredient is potatoes.
Traditionally, you just boil potatoes mash ’em then combine it with flour and egg. Easy! But, if you have leftover mashed potatoes from last night’s dinner or during the Holiday meals where mashed potatoes is served as a staple dish, making gnocchis out of the leftovers is encouraged and highly recommended.
Homemade Gnocchi With Bacon
Ingredients
- 2 cups leftover mashed potatoes
- 1 cup flour (+ 2 tbsp more to toss into the gnocchi shapes)
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp salt
- sprinkle of black pepper
- water for boiling
- 1 sm onion chopped
- 2 cloves garlic chopped
- 4-5 pcs bacon chopped and browned
- 1/2 cup cream (or half & half)
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1/2 cup reserved gnocchi water
Instructions
- Sprinkle 1/2 cup flour in a clean flat surface. Place the mashed potatoes on the table.
- Sprinkle the remaining flour on top of the mashed potatoes.
- Make a well in the middle then add the egg and sprinkle salt & black pepper in the middle. Stir everything together with your hands until well-combined and can form into a ball. Kneed the dough like kneading a bread.
- Shape dough into a rectangle. Cut dough into pieces, about 6-8 pieces.
- Roll each piece of dough into a long rope then cut into small pieces, about 1 inch a piece.
- Use a fork to lightly press on top of each gnocchi for design. Toss the dough pieces with the 2 tbsp of flour to avoid sticking with each other.
- Boil water. Add the gnocchi to cook until they float to the top. Reserve 1/2 cup of the water. Drain the water off.
- In a saute pan, cook the chopped bacon to brown. Then add the garlic and onions to cook.
- Add cream, gnocchi water, and milk. Season with black pepper. Cook until bubbly. Toss in the boiled gnocchi and stir for a few minutes.
Sprinkle grated parmesan cheese when serving. It was my first time to make homemade gnocchi so I wasn’t entirely confident how it would turn out. The family loved it and said it was actually better than the store-bought gnocchi. The one thing I would change though is the size. I’d cut the gnocchi smaller next time but other than that this homemade gnocchi was a success. I hope you try it too.
It doesn’t have to be leftover mashed potatoes. Like I said in the beginning, the simplest way to make gnocchi is boiling the potatoes, peel, mash, then follow the rest of the process from this recipe. Enjoy.
