Gnocchi with Morels

Ask yourself this.............supermarket bought gnocchi or window putty! are you 100% sure you could tell them apart in a blind taste test??? Tried it years ago and never give it a second glance nowadays. I had to try this recipe for 2 reasons. Its a John Torode recipe, I have only tried a couple of his before but they are keepers. And secondly, a bit like the flies at Greggs a million Italians can't be wrong. They are not, it was really nice. Gnocchi isn't a strong presence in a meal but when made fresh and served in the right sauce it was just right.

Firstly I had a bit of a grump on when I started peeling the spuds and found myself muttering 'why are you bothing, your to tired' blah blah and so on. I wasn't in the mood so it felt like quite the task ahead. However during the folding in of flour stage I came over all 'Play Doh' and really started enjoying mucking around with the dough.

How cute are they? I felt a tad smug at this point. I made them and it was easy.

This recipe serves 6. I made the full amount and refridgerated half the dough. I used the full amout of sauce though as it's very British, just chuck it all on. This recipe reads as if its a lot to do and may put you off but it really wasn't that complicated and was worth a little effort.

- 900g of floury potatoes peeled and cut into chunks
- 250g plain flour
- 30g dried morels
- olive oil
- butter (unsalted)
- 1 shallot, diced
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- 200g chestnut mushrooms, roughly chopped
- handful of flat leaf parsley, chopped
- 100g parmesan, grated
- 200g creme fraiche

Boil the potatoes in as little water as possible until just tender. Drain very thoroughly and put back in the pan over a low heat for a moment to dry out the moisture.
Mash the potatoes while they are still warm (they must be warm for this to work), season then slowly add the flour, kneading slowly by folding the edges into the centre then pressing down lightly before sprinkling in each further addition of flour. Once its on the board it cools enough to handle but watch your hands. The recipe say's until soft and 'duvet like', ?????? OK! Don't overwork the dough or you will spoil the structure and end up with gnocchi thats powdery outside and pulpy inside.
Take little balls of dough and roll into long sausages about 2cm in diameter. Then cut these into 3 cm pieces. Press each against the back of a fork, to curve them slighly and leave indentations that will hold the sauce.
To make the sauce soak all but 2 of the morels in boiling water to rehydrate. Whizz the 2 remaining morels in a spice grinder to powder. Heat 1 tbsp of oil and a large knob of butter in a pan and cook the shallots and garlic until softened. Add the chestnut mushrooms and cook til softened then add the soaked morels and heat through.
Cook the gnocchi in plenty of lightly salted simmering water for 3-4 mins. The gnocchi is cooked 2 mins after they rise to the surface.
In a clean pan add more olive oil and butter. Add the mushroom mix and gnocci, give it a toss then add the parsley, parmesan and creme fraiche and toss again. Season with the morel powder to finish.

Time taken     45 minutes
Effort     3.5/5
End result     4/5    It was delicious

Morels are not dry enough to pound to a powder with a morter and pestle and my food processer didn't quite acheive powder either. I am not sure if the larger than powder pieces effected the dish as I forgot to put them on. Therefore if you can't be bothered making dust a la morel, don't loose any sleep.

I must add that since I started this blob a few things have improved greatly. My confidence in tackling recipes that on paper seem a bit daunting. My chopping! (like a ninja). Finally and the reason for mentioning it.....MY SPELLING. Today for the first time I pressed spell check and the page didn't light up like blackpool illuminations, There wasn't a single yellow box :-)) I bet my spell check is just exhausted and given up!!!

Obviously I added that last bit after the spell check and am leaving it there to show what a berk I am