4 Generation Old Gnocchi Recipe with Gabriele Erba

Chef Gabriele Erba shares his family’s four-generation-old recipe for making the perfect potato gnocchi with Pesto Genovese in this masterclass performance. Gabriele shows you the secrets of preparing light, fluffy gnocchi paired with the vibrant flavours of freshly homemade Pesto Genovese.

Gabriele is the head chef of Verderame Ristorante Italiano in Notting Hill, a hidden gem in our neighbourhood and our family’s Sunday go-to lunch spot.

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[music] Today we’re gonna do signature plate recipe of Liguria. I’m from Genoa, so I’m really glad to introduce a very good and very famous recipe. Potato gnocchi with basil pesto. This is very famous, but there are a few steps to follow to have a good, good result.

I learned this recipe from my mother and my mum learned this recipe from her mum and to her mum again. So it’s four generations. A hundred years we passed this recipe. So basically I don’t cook whole potatoes like people with the rock salt in the oven, no.

We peel the potatoes and we cut in small pieces with salt, boiling water to avoid the amide and to lose more amide as possible. For this reason, I can use any type of potatoes. So I can use the white one, yellow one, all the type of potatoes.

So I can avoid to make the glue. The glue is when the amide cook the gluten of the flour. This is unpleasant when you work. Now I’m gonna show you the step. We previously cooked the potatoes and now we’re gonna pass in the sieve. But before we’re gonna put a bit of flour

On the surface, on the marble. There is a perfect ratio to follow when you do the gnocchi. Basically, it’s one kilo of potatoes, 300 grams of flour, 30% of humidity. But it’s not always a rule because, for example, it depends from the humidity of the potatoes.

So now we’re gonna pass the potato on the sieve and I’m gonna add the flour filling the humidity under my finger with the ice. I don’t use the scale to add the flour and you’re gonna see I add flour slowly, slowly. Because now it’s a long time I do the same recipe.

So I don’t need to take any type of weight of flour because my experience now tell me when it’s too much, when it’s too low. And the result is the same. This, I can’t teach. But people have to learn this different step.

Because you have to learn when it’s too moist, when it’s too dry. You need experience and you need a long time. You have to do mistakes obviously. But it’s the good part of this job. When I finish passing the sieve, I take all the potato.

You can taste if you want, the level of salt. Now I use rock salt and I sprinkle and I break the rock salt. But normally I can use the table salt. Now when the potatoes are spread on the table, marble is better. For example, this marble is perfect

Because the marble take down the temperature straight away. So the potatoes must evaporate all the heat. Otherwise, when you add the flour we’re gonna cook the gluten and so we have the glue. When it’s warm, I start to add flour. As you can see, I don’t use any scale.

But I see with my eyes and start to make a dough. This is a trick I can give you. When you do gnocchi and you have to do a big quantity, a huge amount of gnocchi, not like this, this is small, you make three, four, five small dough.

Because if you add the flour, and you make one dough, in the meantime you cut the gnocchi, the potatoes, and the heat the potatoes go ahead and cook the flour. And the first gnocchi are good. And the last is glue. So you have to avoid the glue.

Now, normally I use the tweezers or also the fork. When you do gnocchi and the gnocchi are done properly, it looks a sort of crumble, like lumps. You form the lumps. These, the lumps, it means the potatoes are not overcooked. Because if it’s overcooked it’s full of water.

You have to find the right cooking time for the potatoes to do a perfect gnocchi. So now, basically gnocchi is done. I just add a bit of flour and that’s it. As I told you, you have to feel the humidity under the finger.

Now I can tell you, flour is almost the right amount. Maybe I have to add a bit, but I think we are okay. Perfect. Gnocchi are ready. As you can see, once you go cook potatoes, gnocchi is really fast. Okay, now there are two school of thoughts.

As I told you, I follow my mum’s recipe. You can do one long and cut, like I do. It’s different. I show you how I do. If you have a rolling pin, you can help yourself with a rolling pin. Otherwise, no problem. Today I’m going to show you without a rolling pin.

Because in a restaurant we got all the furnish, but at home sometimes not. So this is the best way to do without a rolling pin. With the weight of your body, you press a bit and you check the thickness. And with a palette, normally simple, the palette, you don’t spoil the marble.

You cut all the strips. Obviously now I go slow to show you better, yeah. You roll softly to give a round form. I think they become delicious because I feel the dough under the finger is perfect. Now we can do with a knife or with this palette, no problem.

When I do the gnocchi, I come back a kid. When I was five, six, I used to help my mum with a fork. You can go with a fork, with a grater, with a spoon, wherever you want. You press the thumb or the first finger here. You have to put the gnocchi here.

The finger and you have to roll a bit, but you have to don’t scratch and you have to be fast, like this. Okay, when I have to do 10 kilos of gnocchi, I go faster than this. Now I want to show you. Okay, now later we’re gonna prepare the pesto.

Pesto is a raw sauce made with basil, garlic. Normally, the real recipe is from Genoa, so it’s with pecorino, not with parmesan cheese. Today we use parmesan cheese because the taste is round, but one time they used pecorino because Genoa was linked with Sardinia, not with Emilia-Romagna.

So from the sea, there was pecorino from Sardinia. Now we’re gonna do the pesto. This is a marble mortar. So basically, once we’re gonna use the mortar to do the pesto. Today, for practice. In all the restaurants, the huge amount of cover, they use this because it’s faster.

They add the cube or ice cube when they blitz because the speed of the turbo mixer is gonna a bit oxidise the basil and change the colour. That’s why they help with ice. So this is a trick I want to give you. So basically, this is basil, okay?

We put the basil in the mortar. This, clove of garlic. I use small one. It doesn’t matter the middle. All the people I heard, “You take away the middle, you take away the heart.” For me, no. For me, it doesn’t change. So basically, we start with basil and rock salt.

And we start to break. After, we’re gonna add pine nuts. Now, we’re gonna add a bit of oil. And the movement is like this. Pesto was made with marble because obviously, there wasn’t electric mixer once. But today, as I told, all the chefs in the restaurant use turbo mixer or electric mix.

Otherwise, it would need a chef just to do pesto. It doesn’t make sense to pay a salary to have a chef just make pesto. Obviously, the smell of the pesto is completely different because there is absence of eating, of speed, of electrical. It’s completely manual and it’s raw, completely cold.

You can say it’s cold. It’s a cold sauce. This is the pesto. And now, as I told you, normally, we should add pecorino cheese. But for the taste, because make taste round, more round, okay? Today, we use parmesan cheese. As you can see now, pesto is creamy. The smell is unbelievable.

Also, if you want to have a good, good result, basically, you should use basil from Genoa. Genoa, Pra’. Because the basil from Genoa is small leaves, light green, clear green, has not become brown or change colour. Here is a bit different because you don’t always find the right product.

But we try to do our best. So now everything is set up. Pesto is ready. And now, we cook gnocchi and we plate up. I want to remind you, when we speak about cooking time of gnocchi, gnocchi are ready when they come up in the surface. So it means the flour is cooked.

Otherwise, you have the unpleasant taste of raw flour in the mouth. Now, we’re gonna wait the boiling of water. We cook, we strain, and we plate up. Okay, we can put the gnocchi to cook. As I said, the cooking is not too long. I think about one minute, maximum two.

But normally, when they are fresh, not from frozen, not prepared in advance, put in the freezer and you cook from freezer, when they are fresh like this, I think one minute, they come up. We strain straight away and we add the pesto and we serve. As you can see,

The gnocchi start to come up on the surface of the water and you strain in a bowl. Here, we’re gonna mix with the pesto and we’re gonna plate up. Now, gnocchi are ready because around all the gnocchi, they come up in the surface in the same time.

Also because the heat is very high, so we’re gonna strain. Okay, the secret here for the gnocchi is to use a bit of water. The pasta of the boiling water is rich of gluten and make more creamy the pesto when you add to the gnocchi. Okay.

So if it needs, we’re gonna add a bit of water. There is already parmesan cheese inside, but if you want to add a bit of taste, you can add a sprinkle on the top, a bit of parmesan cheese. Okay, in our restaurant, we serve potato gnocchi with the clams.

This is a different trick you can offer and you can mix veg and sea, but you can choose also the option completely vegetarian. Okay, this is the best gnocchi. This is the real traditional.