In order to keep the moisture level low to store at room temperature, many shelf-stable gnocchi are made withdehydrated potato flakes, in place of the moisture-packed cooked potato you might use ina fresh version. (To re-hydrate, most packages recommend boiling the gnocchi for about three minutes before saucing, topping, and eating.) This low hydration might be responsible for what theSan Francisco Chronicle called the “too firm” texture, but for many recipe developers, it’s gnocchi’s superpower.
“The shelf-stable ones are fairly indestructible (ever tried to bounce them like Silly Putty?) so they can stand up to high heat,” says Slagle. “They’re also already fully cooked so you don't have to worry about what’s happening to the inside while you're focused on getting a good brown on the outside.”
Unlike most dried pastas (or even fresh pastas from the grocery store), you can pour gnocchi straight out of the bag and into a hot skillet full of butter and mushrooms, or onto an oiled sheet pan of cherry tomatoes. The gnocchi will get toasty and golden-brown in spots like a fried dumpling, without breaking apart or disintegrating when you scoot them around with a spatula.
“Besides rice cakes, I can't really think of a convenient food item that gives you this sort of chewy, gummy bear, deeply lovable texture,” Slagle says. “I honestly find it kind of tricky to develop recipes with them sometimes because my favorite way to eat them is right from the skillet with my fingers.”
Slagle has developed so many recipes using this ingredient over the years for outlets like NYT Cooking that she’soften credited as the person responsible for popularizing it as an add-in for skillet or sheet pan meals (no boiling required). And while she may have helped a lot of people fall in love with the bouncy pasta shape, she tells me she first learned how to skip the boiling step and go straight for the hot pan from Nigella Lawson, who published a recipe forroasted gnocchi back in 2010.
“Proper homemade gnocchi are delicate, soft, and celestially light. In other words, they’re entirely unsuited to frying,” said Lawson, when I reached out to ask about how she arrived at the idea of roasting this oft-disparaged convenience item. “Packet gnocchi have little in common with homemade, being all too often dense and gummy. I used to keep them in the fridge (as many people do) as they’re convenient, quick to cook, have a long shelf life, and my children liked them when they were little.”
The same qualities that make shelf-stable gnocchi bad for traditional red sauce applications make them great for other uses. “Frying (or roasting) them was my own idea (I’d certainly never come across such a thing!) as I felt their failure on the proper gnocchi front—their robustness and density—could actually be an advantage for frying,” says Lawson. “Luckily, I turned out to be right: they crisp up quickly, turning into little croquette gems or, as I see them, miniature roast potatoes. And hence I called them, in knowingly fake Italian, Rapid Roastini!"
