Quick passover gnocchi in mushroom browned butter

Warning: not acceptable for those who don't accept "wet" matzoh
Passover Gnocchi with Mushroom Brown Butter Sauce

Gnocchi
1.5 C potato flakes
1.5C hot water
1 egg plus 1 egg white (note, I'd recommend a yolk, or two eggs and a little less water, but I had whites around)
1.5 tsp salt
2.25C matzo meal (note, I used regular matzoh meal which made them rather coarse, and a little fragile when rolling. Matzoh cake meal is probably better)

Set a large pot of salted water to boil.
Combine water and potato flakes.
Add matzoh meal, egg, salt and knead with hands into a dough.
Roll into 3/4"-inch thick ropes, then cut into about 1/2" pieces.
Roll over the tines of a fork onto a cookie sheet while you finish the rest
Don't boil until the sauce is ready.
Add gently to the boiling water. Wait for them all to float, then boil another minute or so. Add to sauce along with a half-cup of the starchy water.

Sauce:
1 stick butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
12 oz mushrooms, sliced
pinch of crushed red pepper
1 tsp dried basil
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 C milk (note: used lactose-free milk, use what you have, cream best)
1 C grated parmesan
1/4 C pine nuts
2 Tbs finely chopped parsley
2 tsp truffle oil

Melt the butter, allow to brown on low heat.
Add the garlic and chiles and cook briefly
Add the mushroom, turn up the heat a bit to brown.
Add the basil and milk, let the milk simmer a couple minutes to thicken.
Gently fold in the gnocchi with a half-cup of pasta water.
Add the parmesan, parsley, pine nuts and truffle oil.
Serve.

Other notes: was this something a Roman would be proud to serve? No, it was a little dense and coarse, but for a passover meal, it was fantastic. Yes, pine nuts are OK, they're not kitnyot.

Joel,

These sound very good. Thanks for posting this.

stevez wrote:Joel,

These sound very good. Thanks for posting this.

Ditto.

Potato flakes? My imaginary Italian grandmother would be spinning in her imaginary grave. Since most of the labor comes in after the potatoes are cooked, not that hard to do with real potato. I have a cousin with Celiac and you can find Passover friendly recipes with potato starch and almond flour subbing for Matza Meal. I haven't made it in a couple of years because our Seders draw a crowd and it gets really time-consuming in volume. But always yummy.

spinynorman99 wrote:Potato flakes? My imaginary Italian grandmother would be spinning in her imaginary grave. Since most of the labor comes in after the potatoes are cooked, not that hard to do with real potato. I have a cousin with Celiac and you can find Passover friendly recipes with potato starch and almond flour subbing for Matza Meal. I haven't made it in a couple of years because our Seders draw a crowd and it gets really time-consuming in volume. But always yummy.

I hear you, and if I had a potato in the house, I'd have used it. But it was really more a matter of time than effort: I got dinner on the table probably 20 minutes faster.
For some reason, I've always got a partial box of potato flakes. They really only get used for potato blintzes, not even once a year.

But to be honest, they make a decent mashed potato. It's smoooooother than I like my mash, but if you use butter and milk, they taste pretty darn good.

JoelF wrote:But to be honest, they make a decent mashed potato. It's smoooooother than I like my mash, but if you use butter and milk, they taste pretty darn good.

I have been known to make a bowl of instant potatoes topped by instant gravy on occasion (okay, it's been many years and my wife would kill me for the committing this carb-dinal sin these days, but it was a comfort food of my youth).

I agree that a box of Hungry Jack potato flakes is well worth keeping around.