Silvia Barban – Her Lifelong Italian Culinary Influences

Best gnocchi recipe

1. Instead of using regular potatoes, chef Silvia Barban suggest to use sweet potatoes.
   She suggests to always bake them in the oven, instead of boiling in water because then you don't have potatoes they're very wet. So, you don't have to put as much flour as if you would have cooked them in water and it doesn’t get sticky.
2. For 2.5 lbs of potatoes (even better if they're a little old so they're getting starchier).
3. Bake them in the oven until they get cooked and soft.
4. Peel them off. Always work on potatoes to make sure when they're warm and not cold. It's easier to handle and to absorb the other ingredients.
5. Then you rice the potatoes (with a potato ricer)
6. Add around 2 cups of regular flour, one egg, and 1 cup of grated parmesan.
7. Add salt and black pepper.
8. Just mix it all together to create a dough ball.
9. Take a bit, just create these long “snakes” of dough, and cut in like little squares
10. Put them in a pot of boiling water (add the salt when the water is boiling)

What is the best sauce for gnocchi?

1. 1. Lamb ragú would be great with sweet potato gnocchi. The lamb has a little strong flavor and the sweet potatoes go so well with it.
   2. With a lamb ragú, chef Silvia Barban suggests putting a lot of flavor on it like mint, rosemary, sage, and garlic, add olive oil, and cover with red wine.
   3. Let it cook in the oven until is tender basically.
   4. When it is cooked, take it off from the liquid.
   5. Reduce the liquid and pull the meat apart.
   6. Then just sautéed the gnocchi with that and finish with some parmesan.
   7. Do not put butter because the lamb is already rich and you want to taste the lamb you don't want to taste some other flavor.
      You don't want to taste cream either, you want to taste the lamb.
   8. Maybe you can add also some oyster mushroom.