Light, fluffy potatoey pillows from heaven! They turned out perfect. This was a Culinary Institute recipe from the book “Cooking at Home with the Culinary Institute of America” and it was just right.

Here’s the recipe:

3 russet potatoes, peeled

Salt

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 large egg

1 egg yold

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

1 pinch freshly grated nutmeg

3/4 cup all purpose flour, or as needed

3 tablespoons grated Parmesan

1/4 cup minced fresh flat leaf parsley

Peel, cut and place the potatoes in a pan with enough cold water to cover by 2 inches. Cook until tender, 10-12 minutes. Drain, return them to the pot to let them dry over very low heat until no more steam rises. While potatoes are hot, push them through a ricer or food mill into a bowl (I couldn’t find my food mill so I used a medium fine strainer and it worked fine.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.

For the gnocchi dough, add 1 tablespoon of the butter to the potato, add the egg and egg yolk, pepper and nutmeg and mix well. Incorporate the flour to make a stiff ball.

Divide the dough into egg sized pieces. In a floured board, use flat of your hand to roll the dough out into a cylinder about an inch in diameter. Cut them into one inch wide pieces. Gently roll the gnocchi against the tines of a fork to create ridges (this part I skipped!).

Add the gnocchi to boiling water and 2-3 minutes later, when they’re floating, remove them with a slotted spoon. Add the remaining butter to a saute pan over high heat and add some gnocchi and toss until hot and coated with butter. This is where I continued to cook mine and brown them a bit. Then I added my sauce, but the CIA recipe calls for just adding the Parmesan and the parsley.

I used reconstituted Marx Foods‘ dried mushrooms (Matsutake and Porcini) for my sauce with a little bacon, wine and butter. Add in the browned gnocchi, toss and serve over fresh baby spinach. It was delicious!