It’s all in the dough. There are just a few keys to remember: 1) Use starchy potatoes, like regular old russets (baking potatoes); nothing fancy. It’s the starch from the potatoes — along with the gluten from the flour — that holds the dough together.

A phrase often used (overused, really) to describe well-made gnocchi is "light as a cloud." It’s not an especially instructive description for a piece of real food, and for cooks hoping to try their hands at gnocchi for the first time, it can be downright daunting.

2) You don’t want overcooked, waterlogged potatoes; the wetter they are, the more flour you’ll need. I bake them whole, which is effortless, but you could also boil them whole and unpeeled. If time allows, you might dry them out in a low oven for a little while, once they’re fully tender. 3) Use as little flour as you can get away with to make the dough hold its shape. Add the flour a little at a time, and test-boil a piece of dough — even if you think it’s not ready yet — to see if it holds together. 4) Be gentle when mixing and kneading; the idea is to avoid overdeveloping the gluten — which is the offense most likely to make your gnocchi decidedly un-cloudlike.

Another option is to add an egg, which makes success more likely but — and reasonable people disagree about this — makes the final product a tad heavier.

Once you’ve got the basic recipe down, you can start messing around with other vegetables in combination with potatoes. Carrots, beets and spinach are all terrific — especially for their colors — as are squash, parsnips, sweet potatoes, chard and kale. Cook them in olive oil until soft, purée them in the food processor and mix them into the cooked potatoes — because the vegetables carry some extra moisture, you’ll most likely need a little more flour.

Whatever version you make, all it needs is a simple sauce — and not too much of it. The gnocchi is the star — or should I say, the cloud?