I’ve been skipping out on the Tuesday baking post, haven’t I? In Jurassic Park Dr. Malcolm 
(who is THE BEST PART of the movie, by the way) talks about life finding a way. Recently life has been finding a way to complicate things. I’ve been cooking, just not blogging about it. But I’m back on the wagon (blagon?) so here we go:
The Boy and I made Gnocchi, basic potato gnocchi. It’s something he likes to eat when he’s on his own, and -lucky boy! - it’s something that appears to fill his hollow legs without giving him a spare tire. 18-year old male metabolism at work.
The recipe we used came from a cookbook that can be a bit of a challenge, but I figured I should use an Italian cookbook for an Italian dish. The book is "Italy al Dente" by Biba Gaggiano. Her recipe for Gnocchi with Italian Sausage and White Beans is delicious beyond belief. And I’m not a fan of gnocchi, in general. But I love that dish, so I thought I’d take a crack at her recipe for Gnocchi. I do have a copy of some recipes from Silver Spoon, but they were at the office (because….nope, sorry, don’t know why) so Biba it was.
I was surprised at the start to see that the potatoes were baked, skins on, instead of being boiled. I always thought of gnocchi as being something that one makes to use up leftover mashed potatoes. Which may be how the recipe came about in the first place, but leftover was not what the recipe asked for, so baked it was. Baked russet potatoes, cooled a bit before peeling off the skins. Then they were put through a potato ricer (a kitchen tool that I only acquired in 2009, but which I LOVE), mixed with milk and flour and salt. Once it was all mixed together and lightly kneaded, we came to the hard part: the shaping. As with many small pastas – tortellini, ravioli – the serious work time and effort came with the shaping. And gnocchi isn’t even a filled pasta!
Now, I’ve watched this done before. I’ve seen contestants on time-limited competitions make them with ease. I’ve even watched a “how-to” video. And as with all things that require expertise, the experts made it look easy. I would go so far as to say effortless, even.
It was a different story when The Boy and I started. Basically, you roll the dough out into a rope about the diameter of your index finger, cut it into pieces and run each piece against the tines of a fork. I kept getting ropes that were hollow inside. I’m pretty sure that if what I was supposed to end up with was hollow ropes then I would have made perfect gnocchi ropes. That poor dough got worked over a bit more than it probably should have but we did it in the end. The rolling against the fork is to give the gnocchi the traditional lines of classic gnocchi. They help the sauce cling to the pasta. I’ve bought gnocchi without the little lines on them but we wanted to do things exactly by the book. And we didn’t want to waste the dough, not to mention the effort we put into making the ropes. So we forked them all. And there were a lot. More than I ever wanted to roll over the back of a fork. The only thing that made me persist to the end was the possibility that they would taste a million times better than store bought, and the fact that the company was excellent. Amazing the things your kids will tell you over a quiet afternoon of cooking!
(who is THE BEST PART of the movie, by the way) talks about life finding a way. Recently life has been finding a way to complicate things. I’ve been cooking, just not blogging about it. But I’m back on the wagon (blagon?) so here we go:The Boy and I made Gnocchi, basic potato gnocchi. It’s something he likes to eat when he’s on his own, and -lucky boy! - it’s something that appears to fill his hollow legs without giving him a spare tire. 18-year old male metabolism at work.
The recipe we used came from a cookbook that can be a bit of a challenge, but I figured I should use an Italian cookbook for an Italian dish. The book is "Italy al Dente" by Biba Gaggiano. Her recipe for Gnocchi with Italian Sausage and White Beans is delicious beyond belief. And I’m not a fan of gnocchi, in general. But I love that dish, so I thought I’d take a crack at her recipe for Gnocchi. I do have a copy of some recipes from Silver Spoon, but they were at the office (because….nope, sorry, don’t know why) so Biba it was.
I was surprised at the start to see that the potatoes were baked, skins on, instead of being boiled. I always thought of gnocchi as being something that one makes to use up leftover mashed potatoes. Which may be how the recipe came about in the first place, but leftover was not what the recipe asked for, so baked it was. Baked russet potatoes, cooled a bit before peeling off the skins. Then they were put through a potato ricer (a kitchen tool that I only acquired in 2009, but which I LOVE), mixed with milk and flour and salt. Once it was all mixed together and lightly kneaded, we came to the hard part: the shaping. As with many small pastas – tortellini, ravioli – the serious work time and effort came with the shaping. And gnocchi isn’t even a filled pasta!
Now, I’ve watched this done before. I’ve seen contestants on time-limited competitions make them with ease. I’ve even watched a “how-to” video. And as with all things that require expertise, the experts made it look easy. I would go so far as to say effortless, even.
It was a different story when The Boy and I started. Basically, you roll the dough out into a rope about the diameter of your index finger, cut it into pieces and run each piece against the tines of a fork. I kept getting ropes that were hollow inside. I’m pretty sure that if what I was supposed to end up with was hollow ropes then I would have made perfect gnocchi ropes. That poor dough got worked over a bit more than it probably should have but we did it in the end. The rolling against the fork is to give the gnocchi the traditional lines of classic gnocchi. They help the sauce cling to the pasta. I’ve bought gnocchi without the little lines on them but we wanted to do things exactly by the book. And we didn’t want to waste the dough, not to mention the effort we put into making the ropes. So we forked them all. And there were a lot. More than I ever wanted to roll over the back of a fork. The only thing that made me persist to the end was the possibility that they would taste a million times better than store bought, and the fact that the company was excellent. Amazing the things your kids will tell you over a quiet afternoon of cooking!
When it was all done, we cooked a few. And it was just a few; four to be exact. We weren’t hungry at that point, but we felt we owed it to ourselves to try them fresh off the fork, so to speak. So into a pot of boiling salted water went four lonely moderately misshapen gnocchi. And when – after perhaps two minutes – they rose to the surface, we fished them out and had two apiece. The result? Definitely more of a potato taste to them than any we’d had before. Better than store bought? Yes, but by a slim margin. A margin so slim that the pain in the ass factor wiped it out. The PIA factor is something we pay attention to when cooking. Something has to be pretty amazing to justify long hours standing and cooking. And these, well, they weren’t amazing. They were just…good.
We divided the remainder into two packages and froze them. The Boy will cook one batch at some point and we’re thinking that perhaps A.H. will take the other bunch. She’s a gnocchi fan, so it will be interesting to hear what she thinks. And if they’re terrible…I’ll make her and Mr. H. a vegetarian version of the gnocchi with Italian sausage. A meal so good that any bad gnocchi tasting will be forgotten and forgiven.
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