Last fall I was shooting a story for Cereal magazine at Geitmyra food center for children.

It´s such a beautiful old place smack bang in the middle of Oslo in a green oasis with old houses from the 1800th century.

After finishing up the story for Cereal magazine, I smelled something delicious brewing at the back of the market.

Handmade gnocchi was being prepared from scratch over open fire.

The air was crisp and the sun was hiding behind thick fall clouds. It was the perfect setting for getting my hands on something warm and tasty.

Have you noticed how utterly more tasty food is when being prepared and eaten outside?!

Chefs from one of the restaurants I´ll be featuring in my upcoming Oslo guide, called Baltazar, was sharing their passion for great food made from scratch.

Eager little ones and overeager big ones, like me who could not help myself and squeaks of delight may or may not have crossed my lips in excitement, gathered around.

Ever since I landed in Italy for the first time at the age of 19 I´ve been in love with its diverse, simple and tasty cuisine.

The whole low carb diet never really hit home with me as I indulge in pasta, bread, pizza and gnocchi to my stomachs content more often than not.

In the end we only live once, and there is no guarantee there will be served pasta in heaven…

I´m just saying…

So I make sure I get plenty while walking on this earth.

However having said that, I definitely try to have a healthy lifestyle, eating mostly fresh, organic, vegetables, and as of recent, drink plenty of water!

So when that´s taken care of I happily indulge in high carb dishes whenever I feel like, guilt free.

The thing about gnocchi is that it, besides tasting so good, is fairly easy to prepare from cracking the egg, mashing the potatoe to frying it in a pan with butter and sage.

So really, with a little bit of planning there is simply no excuse for not treating your family and friends, or just yourself for that matter, to some homemade gnocchi next time you prepare dinner.

Want to know how?

Here we go…

Homemade gnocchi di patate with sage butter

(from Baltazar)

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Ingredients

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Serving 4

600 g Russet potatoes

2-3 egg yolks

220 g all purpose flour

1ts ocean salt

 100 g freshly grated Parmesan

25 g butter

Lemon

Sage or Rosemary

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Directions

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Boil the potatoes, about 45 minutes.

Make sure you have a big enough pot so that the water covers the potatoes.

Don´t add salt to the water as it will make the gnocchi to dense.

When the potatoes are boiled and soft, pell them and mash them with a hand masher and add flour and salt in a bowl.

Create a crater in the dough where you add the egg yolks.

Knead the dough gently until it becomes soft and workable.

With your hands, roll finger thick “sausages”, and cut them into 2 cm long pieces.

Gently press each pice with a fork to create the desired gnocchi pattern.

(Prepare an ice bath for the later use.)

Bring water to a boil in a big pot and add a pinch of salt.

Add the gnocchi and boil them till they float to the top.

This should not take more than a couple of minutes, then quickly add the gnocchi to ice cold water  bath mentioned above till they are cooled, then dry them on a kitchen towel.

Melt butter in a saucepan till its golden brown with some sprigs of rosemary or my favorite, some sage leafs.

To stop the browning of the butter add some drops of fresh juice from a lemon.

Add the gnocchi and warm them in the delicious sage butter.

When warm enough, dish up and serve with freshly grated parmesan, or in a tomato sauce.

Bon Appetitt!