@foodnetwork's reel — transcript & breakdown

The chef introduces himself and the dish, setting the stage for a cooking tutorial.

“Hi, everybody. My name is Juan Cabrera. I'm the executive chef here at Marela Restaurant. And today we're going to be making our house made gnocchi.”

He begins the cooking process by preparing potatoes, explaining the purpose of salt for moisture removal.

“We're going to start with our Idaho potatoes. Salt will help to remove the moisture from the potatoes itself.”

The potatoes are baked, then prepared for the gnocchi dough, showing a key step in potato processing.

“And we're going to go in the oven at 350 for about an hour and ten minutes. All right. Bye bye. Beautiful. Cut them in half. Push them against the wall. We want none of the skin. We just want the potato meat. And then we're going to do our thing. So lift it gently. The potatoes will be going through it. They're nice and soft. Remove the extras.”

The chef demonstrates mixing ingredients to form the gnocchi dough, emphasizing traditional methods and the role of ingredients.

“Just going to do a little bit like nonnas or grandmas would do in Italy. The egg is gonna help us having a stable dough. We're going to want that egg to be nicely spread out. We're going to add Parmigiano-Reggiano, Caputo flour, double-o. This is the best thing to make pasta or gnocchi. Last but not least, we always want a little bit of salt. This will help with the gluten of the dough itself. And we're just going to fold it. Now start putting a little bit of pressure to it. You can see how the dough is starting to form nicely. So what you're doing is just agitating the gluten. You can see it bounces beautifully. And that's kind of what we want. We're going to let it rest for about 8 to 10 minutes and then we're going to come back at it.”

The gnocchi is rolled and cut, with tips on dusting with flour and cutting for even cooking.

“We're going to start the process of rolling the gnocchi. So we're just going to get a little bit of it. And truly, you can do any size you want. This one we're just going to be doing kind of the traditional size. I like to dust it with some flour just to help yourself. I like to remove the first edge. You're going to do a quick little pinch, then cut. Again, they don't have to be perfect. They just wanted it to be, you know, similar sizes so they cook at the same time and evenly. We're going to dust it with a little bit of flour. This is our beautiful gnocchi.”

The chef prepares the tomato sauce with butter and then cooks the gnocchi, highlighting the importance of pasta water for sauce consistency.

“All right, so here we have our beautiful San Marzano tomato sauce. This is going to go really, really, really well with our gnocchi. And then because more butter, more better. Want it to get nice and hot. The butter is going to add some creaminess. And not just that, it's gonna add flavor. Our water is boiling. So we are about to put our gnocchi. So we're going to cook them for about a minute and a half to two minutes. Look at this, guys. They look amazing. They're going to be ready to pull them out. We do want some of that pasta water. It's gonna help us with our tomato sauce. Mix, mix, mix. Seasoning always happens towards the end. You can see the tomato sauce is already reducing. Let's go!”

The final dish is plated with mozzarella, showcasing the completed gnocchi.

“Gently. And spread out throughout the plate. A very healthy portion. Some buffalo mozzarella. Beautiful gnocchi with San Marzano tomatoes and buffalo mozzarella.”