However, there is a huge variety of Italian gnocchi that bear little resemblance to kopytka. The simplest Italian potato gnocchi are usually formed as oval dumplings with ridges, while kopytka are usually formed by cutting diagonally a 1 inch roll (some call it snake) of dough, which results in dumplings shaped as small hooves, hence the name.
Ingredients
| 900 g | boiled and mashed potatoes (about 1 kg before peeling) |
| 3 | eggs |
| 330 g | all purpose flour (plus extra to prevent the dough from sticking when forming kopytka) |
| salt |
Recipe
- Peel and boil potatoes. Drain them, and allow to cool.
- Mash the potatoes using a ricer, or grind them in the meat grinder1.
- Put a 5-L pot 3/4 full of water to boil, so it is ready when you finish forming kopytka. Add about 1 to 1-1/2 tbsp of salt once the water is boiling.2
NOTE: preparing the dough and forming kopytka has to be relatively fast as the ready dough will have a tendency to become less dense, even watery, in time. - Place the mashed potatoes in a bowl of stand mixer and start mixing them with a flat beater at low speed.
- Add eggs one by one, waiting until incorporated.
- Add flour, relatively fast, but so that it doesn’t get kicked out.
- Finish mixing at higher speed until uniform.
- As soon as the dough is ready transfer portions of it onto a large cutting board or counter top dusted with flour.
- Roll each portion forming a long roll of about 1 inch (2.5 cm, or thumb size) in diameter
- Cut each roll at ~45° angle into pieces about 1 inch long.
- Transfer kopytka into the boiling water (on high heat). To make it easier and faster without splashing I use a spider strainer that I fill several kopytka at once. Stir with a wooden spoon after adding each portion.
- Once the kopytka float and the water starts boiling again, reduce the heat and continue boiling for 2-3 min. If in doubt take out one kopytko and cut it to check whether it is cooked through.
- Take out cooked kopytka onto plates3. You can serve them almost immediately with a sauce of your choice.
- You can also let them cool and keep in closed container or even plastic bag in a fridge for a few days. To reheat them you can dump them into boiling water, lightly salted, just until warm enough to serve (1 min or so). Alternatively, you can fry them in a frying pan with a little of oil until golden brown, then turn and brown the other side. This will yield kopytka with a distinctly different, and possibly better, taste and flavour than the fresh ones. They can be served this way, or again with a sauce of your choice.
- Reheating kopytka in microwave does work, but in my opinion the result is less tasty. (I say this even though I like to use microwave for a lot of things).
Suggested sauces
- Mushroom sauce, preferably made with button mushrooms with addition of some dried wild mushrooms (Boletes are best). Recipe coming soon.
- Various tomato sauces. My personal choice is my grandfather’s Siberian sauce (I plan to post a recipe for it, and I will add a link here when ready)
- Skwarki (originally fried pork rind, but I prefer chopped and fried pork belly or bacon).
- Caramelized onion.
- Meat sauces or meat stew.
- Some people like it with breadcrumbs fried in butter until golden, and others add sugar to it. That is the way I like knedle (see below).
Other uses of this dough
- Knedle: fruit (usually plum halves) wrapped in the kopytka dough and boiled. Served with cream, breadcrumbs fried in butter until golden, sugar, or any combination of those.
- Kotlety ziemniaczane (literally potato cutlets or potato patties) – the same dough formed in a relatively thick (1/2 inch, 12mm) hamburger shape and fried on a thin layer of oil. Best served with mushroom sauce. It is so simple that it does not require separate recipe.
Do not confuse kotlety with placki ziemniaczane that are made with raw ground potatoes. I will post a recipe for the latter soon.
Footnotes
- It is important for the mashed potatoes to be smooth and not contain chunks, so mashing them with a fork or a pestle or similar utensil may not be sufficient. If using a ricer, it may be easier to press the potatoes through while they are stil quite warm. In such case, wait for the mashed potatoes to cool down. ↩︎
- There are two reasons to add salt to water only after it started to boil. They are not extremely important, but I just wanted to share them. Keep reading if you are interested.
If you add salt to cold water it will tend to stay on the bottom while the water heats up. This creates local high concentration of salt contacting the bottom of the pot. If it is made of stainless steel, it will in time succumb to so-called pitting corrosion. Believe it or not, stainless steel is not 100% resistant to corrosion. First it will manifest itself as small discoloured spots, that will in time grow in size and depth. Depending on grade of stainless steel, this process may be slower or faster, but once it starts it is almost impossible to stop it, because corrosion products create a local galvanic cell promoting galvanic corrosion. The process is slow, and it will not destroy your pot rapidly, but because it is easy to avoid, or slow it down once it started, why not do it. Obviously this does not apply to enamelled or otherwise coated pots.
The second reason is also not a significant one, as the levels of harmful chemicals in tap water are typically very low. But chlorinated tap water contains very low level of carcinogenic disinfection byproducts, some of which are chlorinated organic compounds. Many of these compounds are volatilized when water boils, but adding salt (almost all of which is iodized) before boiling can convert them into iodated organic compounds, which are less volatile. As I said, the risk is extremely low, but again it is easy to avoid it by adding salt after water has been boiling for some time, or using non-iodized salt (pickling salt is not iodized). Alternatively, you can use water from under-sink water filtration system or even BRITA, which removes among other things chlorinated disinfection byproducts to even lower levels ↩︎ - You can add some butter to cooked kopytka to prevent them from sticking together. Other option is to add some butter or oil to the boiling water before adding kopytka. ↩︎