— Mirko Pavlovic

So what you've described in my mind is potato gnocchi, which is certainly no one one way of using a potato dough. I'm certainly as you describe the base here right potatoes, which could be boiled. They could also be baked. There's a certainly a legitimate approach eggs act as a binder. The egg whites in particular are going to be in importance in this case. But you know think about it there, you know, there are approaches that eliminate egg white but do include egg yolk which is added for flavor and fat which contributes to the texture and the mouth feel Okay other finished products as well as some color. and then Flour. So here use a flour that's got a good gluten content. So an AP flour at the low end is probably going to be fine and you can even use a bread flour which is going to give you two or three percentage points more. Okay in gluten, which will give you structure okay in the finished product and then the all-important salt to bring just that little bit of interest on the palate so You know as we think about when I think about potato gnocchi, okay, you know, I'm thinking about pushing the cooked. Potato through a ricer or using a greater in order to break it down into a small size. That's also very even okay across the entire potato. So we don't want lumps because lumps are more difficult to stay together. But if you have smaller pieces, there's more surface area and more binding activity. That will take place. Okay. When you get the flour, okay, as you mentioned, you know, not too much flour, you know one place to start is a proximately a 25% flour by weight when compared to the potato 20 to 25% Let's say right in there is often a good place to sort of play with that dough. And then the other part is As you incorporating the flour we certainly want to knead it, but we want to need it minimally. Okay, because the more we need the more the gluten is developed and a chewier. The product is going to be okay now certainly the the egg yolk with its relatively high fat content is going to help maintain some some we call a shortening or tenderness. Okay in the finished product, but still if there's too much needing you're going to develop a chewiness right as you're describing here. So keep that in mind. All right, and then otherwise, you know, we want to add that to some gently boiling water, right? There's boiling water, but you know, there can be water with a very robust boil. Or with a more gentle boil think about it at a more gentle boil so that there's not too much agitation in the pot. We want some movement but not too much so that the the dumplings or the gnocchi whatever it is that you're you know that you're making it doesn't get, you know bounced around and beat up too much now on the other hand, we don't want the water to cool down too much because the starch in the flour will take too long to gelatinize or to absorb the liquid and reach that cooked State and in that situation if it sits in a water that's too cool the water instead will soak in and allow those dumplings to fall apart. Okay. So yes, I agree. There's definitely a balance in there, but do keep that. Mind, okay, and then otherwise what you're talking about here is recipe testing. So recipe testing in my mind requires note-taking and also requires some some Precision okay with each step that you take so measure with a scale your ingredients take notes. And then also when you get to a point of success, okay after some modification, of course as you do recipe testing Also note the percentage okay of the flour relative to the potato okay, in this case and and then go for there go from there. I'll give it keeping in mind that as you change ingredients for example, a type of potato. And also type of flour and other variables such as the temperature of the water or the the amount of needing that you do that although these variables will affect the end product. Okay, and so, you know, the more testing you do in a in a focused sort of manner including adequate note-taking, you know, the more or the deeper your understanding will develop and you're gonna be able to then navigate these changes much more freely. Okay. Now I want to take a bit of a tangent here. And you know talk about this this idea of percentages. Okay in the course of creating food in particular baking. All right, so, you know as we get deeper into into baking actually, let me let me take another tangent here and just mention that when it comes to Potato gnocchi also try baking them so you can roll them out into a kind of a thick, you know sheet and then adequate flour right and then you know, I like to cut them out in a little rounds and then just place them on on a baking sheet and then brush them with oil so they don't dry out in the oven and used oil of your choice whether it's a butter or olive oil or something else and then bake them and then just you know, you do the testing to get to the desired, you know timing on doneness, but that's gonna give you sort of a another approach okay to cooking these potato based dumplings. All right. But anyway back to to baking for a moment here. A lot of you are aware that like bread recipes many of them are written in weight measures, right, you know units of measure and ideally using the metric system in my opinion. Okay, but the reason why I mean one reason why it's so nice to use weights is that it gives us a chance to start to investigate and understand recipes via What's called the baker's percentage system, you know, which means that are starting point in the case of bread which is gonna be flour. Right as our main ingredient is referred to as as 100% and then all of the additional ingredients, you know, salt and yeast and and whatever is going to be listed as a person as a as Relation to the flour as a percentage of the weight of flour and if you can get to the point. Where you you understand this language of baking then you're going to develop the control the understanding and the control over the formulas not a recipe at this point, but it's a formula you'll have enough control over it to understand that if you want to change the texture texture in this direction or add a certain type of ingredients that you can make adjustments to percentages and you know have confidence in the finished product. Okay, so a bit of a tangent here from dumplings, I realize but it's all in the spirit of I guess giving a plug to Understanding certain recipes by weight and by ratio and by percentage so that you know again you can you can control that recipe or that formula better and therefore make changes to it with greater confidence. Okay. So keep all that in mind as you move down your path of better cooking. All right. Thank you.