Gnochhi In 3 Cheese Sauce (from Chef Fabio On Chow Ciao)

Total Time: 24 hrs 30 mins Preparation Time: 24 hrs Cook Time: 30 mins

Ingredients

• Servings: 6
• 3 lbs potatoes, baked, just the flesh of the potato
• 2 cups flour
• 1 cup parmesan cheese
• 1 tablespoon nutmeg
• 1/2 lb fontilla cheese, shredded (i used dutch- but chef fabio used italian)
• 1/2 lb cheddar cheese, shredded
• 8 ounces crumbled blue cheese
• 1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
• 3/4 lb bulk italian sausage

Recipe

• 1 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!
• 2 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!].
• 3 refrigerate the baked potato flesh overnight.
• 4 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).
• 5 this is the dating stage, let those dry ingredients blend together --
• 6 stop the mixer and add all of the cold potato at once.
• 7 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!
• 8 after 5 minutes, you have a dough. they are married now and we all honor the bond :).
• 9 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.
• 10 as you are making the dough, prepare the cheese sauce:.
• 11 start a small pot of water to a boil and place a glass bowl over it.
• 12 keep the water boiling at a low temp, barely boiling- small bubbles.
• 13 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!
• 14 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).
• 15 add the cream. the cream will absorb the heat and allow the cheeses to melt together.
• 16 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.
• 17 cut the dough into fist sized balls.
• 18 roll them out with your palms to make long, cigar-shaped cylinders.
• 19 line them all up and chop at 1/2-3/4" intervals. this makes the pillow shpaed gnocchi.
• 20 the cheese sauce should be melted so mix it up with the sausage in a serving bowl.
• 21 turn the water up to a boil to cook the gnocchi in the boiling water.
• 22 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).
• 23 put the gnocchi into the sauce/sausage mix and let stand for a minute or two so the gnocchi can absorb the awesomesauce.
• 24 serve with shaved parm.