CHEF CHAO RECIPES

Steps:

• Cold potatoes are critical to making good gnocchi! Bake them the night before. 375 for a minimum of 60 minutes, make sure they are done- poke with a fork, before and after!
• Scoop out the flesh of the potatoes once they are cool. [not necessary to the recipe, but save potato skins to fill with cheee and chili to bake and serve with sour cream, onions and hot sauce- awesome!].
• Refrigerate the baked potato flesh overnight.
• Next is to mix the dry ingredients in a stand mixer (flour, parm and nutmeg) (or do it with a hand mixer and a boatload of patience).
• This is the dating stage, let those dry ingredients blend together --
• Stop the mixer and add all of the COLD potato at once.
• Mix on low for 5 minutes. At first this will look very dry and you will be tempted to add liquid. DO NOT DO IT!
• After 5 minutes, you have a dough. They are married now and we all honor the bond :).
• While doing this, brown the italian sausage in a pan. Make sure it is done because it will only be warmed through after this stage.
• As you are making the dough, prepare the cheese sauce:.
• Start a small pot of water to a boil and place a glass bowl over it.
• Keep the water boiling at a low temp, barely boiling- small bubbles.
• This is a double boiler, most people know what it is, but if you did not, just cook in the clean bowl and let the boiling water do the heating!
• To the bowl on top, add the three cheeses (this keeps the cheese sauce from sticking to the bottom of a pan- a bowl in this case).
• Add the cream. The cream will absorb the heat and allow the cheeses to melt together.
• The dough is now looking like dough, bring it out and punch it down and knead it a few times- you don't want air bubbles in the dough or they will absorb water.
• Cut the dough into fist sized balls.
• Roll them out with your palms to make long, cigar-shaped cylinders.
• Line them all up and chop at 1/2-3/4" intervals. This makes the pillow shpaed gnocchi.
• The cheese sauce should be melted so mix it up with the sausage in a serving bowl.
• Turn the water up to a boil to cook the gnocchi in the boiling water.
• Once a few of them float to the top, ALL of them are done. Don't pick the floaters only, when a few float, get them all (assuming you added them all at the same time).
• Put the gnocchi into the sauce/sausage mix and let stand for a minute or two so the gnocchi can absorb the awesomesauce.
• Serve with shaved parm.