This recipe is super-easy and so pretty. However, it is in French, so Morgane has kindly translated for you below – or use this link to see the full site and pics http://laraffinerieculinaire.com/the-purple-gnocchi-gnocchi-de-vitelotte/
La raffinerie culinaire / The purple gnocchi
Je ne suis pas très pâtes en général, mais alors les gnocchis, pwaaaaa ! Surtout les gnocchis à la pomme de terre (parce qu’a la semoule je suis moins fan) ! Comme c’est bientôt la fin de la saison des Vitelottes, j’en ai profité pour en prendre un petit peu, parce qu’une pomme de terre Violette, c’est quand même vachement cool ! Bon par contre mis à part la couleur, ça reste une pomme de terre, avec un léger petit goût de noisette, certes, mais une patate quoi. En plus la chaire farineuse de la Vitelotte restreint un peu les possibilités de la cuisiner, à part en purée ou en chips, on à vite fait le tour ! Alors puisqu’il faut des pomme de terre bien farineuse pour faire des gnocchis, pourquoi pas en faire des violets ! J’ai gardé la recette de base que j’utilise pour faire des gnocchis classiques, et je les ai mêmes mieux réussit qu’avec des pommes de terre classiques. Au top quoi !
I don’t really like pasta usually, but gnocchi, OMG !
But specially potato gnocchi (I’m not a big fan of semolina gnocchi honestly) ! As the end of the vitelotte season is approaching, I took the opportunity to take some of them…. A purple potato is still pretty cool! (Well) aside from / apart from the colour, it’s still a potato, and tastes slightly like hazelnut, but is still a potato.
Besides the floury flesh of the vitelotte quite limits the ways of cooking it, apart from mashed potatoes or chips. So since you need very floury potatoes to make gnocchi, why not make purple ones! I kept the basic recipe I use to make classic gnocchi, and I even made them better than with basic potatoes! Perfect then!
Serves 4:
. 500 g. vitelotte potatoes (total weight once peeled, so use a bit more at first)
. 1 egg
. Lemon zest
. 140 g. flour
. Salt
Start by boiling the purple potatoes: rinse them (that’s not because we peel them off after that we have to cook them before washing!), then put them in a pot full of a cold* water, then cook them until they’re done (Elementary my dear Watson), then count about 30 minutes of cooking, so 25 minutes of boiling.
- if you do not put them in cold water, they will burst, same thing with basic potatoes.
Once cooked, rinse your vitelottes under cold water to stop them from cooking further, but you still need to keep them tepid, as it’s easier to make a puree. Peel them, then mash them. Ideally, you should mash them in a potato ricer, in order to get a very thin puree; as I don’t have a mill, I just mashed them with a potato-masher. The most important thing is to have a really smooth puree, without any big bits. Then add the lemon zest and mix well. Add salt, then add half the flour. Mix and add the egg. When you get smooth dough, add the rest of the flour and mix well. At this point you should get a nice firm smooth ball of dough. If your dough seems too sticky, add more flour. Cut your ball in 4, flour your work surface and form long thin rolls (circa. 2 cm diameter each). Cut each of your 4 rolls into gnocchi size pieces; to get regular bits, take your fingers as mark, measure between the thumb and your index finger, and cut to size.
If you wish to, you can leave them as they are. Indeed in Italy, some restaurants serve gnocchi with that shape! But if you want to make them properly according the rules, you still have some (long) minutes of preparation; form some small balls with each of the bits. Take a fork, place a small ball of vitelotte at the top of the fork’s tines, press your index into the gnocchi then make it roll with the aid of your index. Do this with each of your small gnocchi balls, and yes it takes some time! Here it is, you have some beautiful purple gnocchi! You cook them the same way you cook basic gnocchi. Bring to the boil a huge volume of hot salt water, then put the gnocchi in it. They’re cooked once they get to the surface.
Serve them as they are, drizzled with olive oil and with some parmesan cheese. You can also brown them in a stove with some butter and serve them in a salad.
Fin and Farm 