Last night I was up late. Really late. I suppose it ended up technically turning into early rather than late at some point. Anyway, when I'm up and can't sleep, I tend to do two things: clean and cook. Having cleaned my entire living room, dining room and kitchen and still not being tired, I decided to cook something.
"What should I cook?", I asked myself unnecessarily. Who asks themselves questions?
It dawned on me while flipping through my many tomes of culinary instruction: gnocchi.
Potato gnocchi, specifically. Gnocchi (or the singular gnoccho) means "lump" or "little lump" in Italian, depending on who you ask. Although in the past (mostly due to a prep job I had), I used to make gnocchi multiple times a week, it's probably been a good year since I've made any. I wanted to find a trusted recipe, something with credentials (not because I forgot how to make it, but moreso just to mix it up a little. I like to live on the edge, people). I looked through some internet recipes and I eventually decided upon a standard recipe by Mario Batali. Mario Batali is badass at Italian food, so why wouldn't a classic dish be equally badass?
Then something occurred to me: I own over 100 cookbooks and I rarely, if ever, make anything from them. Now, I'll admit I use them extensively to find inspiration and for ideas, but I almost never cook a recipe directly out of one of them. So I flipped through a few to see if any had gnocchi recipes and I happened upon my shiny, barely used copy of The French Laundry Cookbook. There are not many recipes in this cook that one can make without 3 days of prep, some grade A foie gras and an immersion circulator. This book is intense, but there are a few recipes that are pretty simple and relatively quick. Potato gnocchi is one such recipe.
Having decided what I was going to cook and how I was going to cook it, I set out to make said potato dumplings. The ingredients were simple: potatoes, eggs, flour, salt and a few specialized pieces of equipment (a ricer, board scraper). I won't chronicle what I did step-by-step (maybe in the future... plus there's the whole copyright issue and I can't afford to be sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars at this point in my life), but I will say two things. First off, these took a little over two hours to make, start to finish (more than half that time is cooking the potatoes). Secondly, let me just say that these gnocchi were awesome little fluffy pillows of culinary sexiness. Like I said, I didn't take pictures of the entire process, but if you want to see a detailed video (not mine, obviously) of the whole technique, Click Here.
They were easily the lightest, and dare I say "best," gnocchi I've ever made or even eaten. I'm thinking about making them en masse and shipping them to my friends and family.
Now according to the book, this recipe makes 20 dozen gnocchi. That's 240. That's a lot. Apparently, The French Laundry uses tiny gnocchi because I made maybe half that amount and mine weren't particularly gigantic. Even so, I can't really eat that many gnocchi at one time and everyone else in the house was sleeping, so I IQF'd the whole mess for later (a picture of which is at the top of this post). Gnocchi is one of those foods that can be frozen and re-heated fabulously without any real loss in quality.
You may notice that my gnocchi don't have the characteristic grooves often associated with potato gnocchi. Well, there's a good reason mine don't have them: I'm lazy. And plus they're pretty soft when they're fresh, so it was kind of a bitch trying roll each one on the tines of a fork (as I don't have a fancy $3 gnocchi board).
Number of times the word "gnocchi" appears in this post: 16, not including the text immediately proceeding this tally.
...something I forgot to mention (or, "the one criticism I have"): for every 2 pounds of potatoes, this recipes calls for 2 tablespoons of salt. I found this to be a bit much. I'd suggest cutting it back to maybe 1 tablespoon of salt and don't even bother salting the cooking water.
"What should I cook?", I asked myself unnecessarily. Who asks themselves questions?
It dawned on me while flipping through my many tomes of culinary instruction: gnocchi.
Potato gnocchi, specifically. Gnocchi (or the singular gnoccho) means "lump" or "little lump" in Italian, depending on who you ask. Although in the past (mostly due to a prep job I had), I used to make gnocchi multiple times a week, it's probably been a good year since I've made any. I wanted to find a trusted recipe, something with credentials (not because I forgot how to make it, but moreso just to mix it up a little. I like to live on the edge, people). I looked through some internet recipes and I eventually decided upon a standard recipe by Mario Batali. Mario Batali is badass at Italian food, so why wouldn't a classic dish be equally badass?
Then something occurred to me: I own over 100 cookbooks and I rarely, if ever, make anything from them. Now, I'll admit I use them extensively to find inspiration and for ideas, but I almost never cook a recipe directly out of one of them. So I flipped through a few to see if any had gnocchi recipes and I happened upon my shiny, barely used copy of The French Laundry Cookbook. There are not many recipes in this cook that one can make without 3 days of prep, some grade A foie gras and an immersion circulator. This book is intense, but there are a few recipes that are pretty simple and relatively quick. Potato gnocchi is one such recipe.
Having decided what I was going to cook and how I was going to cook it, I set out to make said potato dumplings. The ingredients were simple: potatoes, eggs, flour, salt and a few specialized pieces of equipment (a ricer, board scraper). I won't chronicle what I did step-by-step (maybe in the future... plus there's the whole copyright issue and I can't afford to be sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars at this point in my life), but I will say two things. First off, these took a little over two hours to make, start to finish (more than half that time is cooking the potatoes). Secondly, let me just say that these gnocchi were awesome little fluffy pillows of culinary sexiness. Like I said, I didn't take pictures of the entire process, but if you want to see a detailed video (not mine, obviously) of the whole technique, Click Here.
They were easily the lightest, and dare I say "best," gnocchi I've ever made or even eaten. I'm thinking about making them en masse and shipping them to my friends and family.
Now according to the book, this recipe makes 20 dozen gnocchi. That's 240. That's a lot. Apparently, The French Laundry uses tiny gnocchi because I made maybe half that amount and mine weren't particularly gigantic. Even so, I can't really eat that many gnocchi at one time and everyone else in the house was sleeping, so I IQF'd the whole mess for later (a picture of which is at the top of this post). Gnocchi is one of those foods that can be frozen and re-heated fabulously without any real loss in quality.
You may notice that my gnocchi don't have the characteristic grooves often associated with potato gnocchi. Well, there's a good reason mine don't have them: I'm lazy. And plus they're pretty soft when they're fresh, so it was kind of a bitch trying roll each one on the tines of a fork (as I don't have a fancy $3 gnocchi board).
Number of times the word "gnocchi" appears in this post: 16, not including the text immediately proceeding this tally.
...something I forgot to mention (or, "the one criticism I have"): for every 2 pounds of potatoes, this recipes calls for 2 tablespoons of salt. I found this to be a bit much. I'd suggest cutting it back to maybe 1 tablespoon of salt and don't even bother salting the cooking water.
1 comment:
mmm.. havarti cream sauce and gnocchi!!! Man I can really make great food :P
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