"Rit, che la mama g'ha fat i gnoc!"

In my dialect there is this saying "rit, che la mama g'ha fat i gnoc", which litterally means "laugh, laugh, cause your mom made gnocchi", which is said to people that are laughing for no apparent reason...I guess... Anyway, why not giving you precisely the recipe of the legen...dary gnocchi? And despite the fact that they sound (and taste) delicious, they're actually fairly easy to make. It might just take a little bit. But I'm sure that this won't stop you, my dear nonexistent reader. About the sauce to put on them, a common choice is some crushed tomatoes and cheese sauce, but I'd rather eat them with butter and sage, which is the recipe I'm going to give you.

Gnocchi di patate (potatoes gnocchi)

Ingredients: 2lb of potatoes, 3cups of flour, 1 egg, salt, butter, sage.

Preparation: boil the potatoes, peel them and mash them. Then add the flour, the egg and a couple of salt sprinkles and start mixing everything together (by hand). You should get to a pretty soft dough. If it's still sticky, add more flour. Now roll the dough into the shape of a snake of diameter of about one inch. With a knife, start to cut the dough into little pieces (your gnocchi!).



If you want to get fancy (go big or go home...just saying), you can now roll each of the gnocchi on the spikes of a fork, to give them the characteristic shape. The drawback is that...it takes forever!!!

Now put a big pot filled with water on the stove and when it boils, add salt (like you do whenever you cook pasta...cause you make pasta, right? RIGHT?). Then throw the gnocchi in the pot, but not too many at a time, cause they need space. Basically, they all need to be able to float. They cook pretty quickly (about 2-3 minutes). When they're ready, they start to float, and you can collect them with a strainer or a big spoon...or whatever you have!

In the meanwhile, you can prepare the sauce: just melt some butter in a pan and add a few leaves of sage, then let hit fry for a couple of minute. Don't be stingy with the butter, cause some will stick to the pan and you need enough for your gnocchi.

When the gnocchi are ready, just add the sauce (and some parmesan if you like it) and enjoy!

...rit, che la mama g'ha fat i gnoc!