provide lightness. The progress of cooking is
judged by the position of the dumpling in the
pot; when it rises to the top, it’s considered
almost done, given another minute or so, and
then scooped out. This tendency to rise with
cooking is due to the expansion of the dough’s
air pockets, which fill with vaporized water as
the dumpling interior approaches the boiling
point and make the dough less dense than the
surrounding water.
Gnocchi Gnocchi — the word is Italian and
means “lumps” — got their start in the 1300s
as ordinary dumplings made from bread
crumbs or flour (Roman gnocchi are still
made by baking squares of a cooked dough of
milk and semolina). But with the arrival of the
New World’s potato, Italian cooks
transformed gnocchi into a form of dumpling
with an unusually light texture. The starchy
potato flesh became the main, tender
ingredient, with just enough flour added to