Okay, so I made gnocchi and was surprised how easy the whole thing was. The recipe calles for 1lb. of potatoes and 1 cup of flour. Two potatoes of mine constituted a pound so I put about 5 unpeeled potatoes in to boil in my dutch oven for over 30 min. They felt soft enough, and I held them with a dishtowel to peel them. I actually thought peeling them after would be more of a pain than before, but the peels came off so easily. I put them into a bowl, then mashed them, only to find out that I should have left them on for about 5-10 more minutes, because they were kind of chunky as opposed to mushy. The recipe said to add half the flour and work in more until it becomes a dough consistency. Adding to much would lose all flavor and adding to little, would make them crumble. I also added salt and fresh ground black pepper. Then I dug my hands in and began to mix. I was alarmed to see that after adding the entire cup of flour it still didn't have a dough consistency, then remembered that I did have more potatoes. So, another half a cup later, it felt like dough. ta-da. Then I scooped a little out and rolled it into a long worm about 1/2" thick. Oh I put water on to boil and salted it thoroughly. I then cut the "worm" into 1" pieces, then with a floured fork, pressed in to make indentations. After each roll, I would drop it in the water, and prepare another roll. By the time I was done, the gnocchi had floated to the top and stayed there for about a minute. I used a slotted spoon to retrieve them and then I set it aside. I was working with limited food availability in my kitchen, so here is how the improvisation went. I sauteed garlic in evoo and then added a bag of frozen vegetables. There was broccoli, red peppers, baby corn and carrots. I sauteed those all up, added salt, pepper, and a dash of oregano and BAM! Dinner.
After making gnocchi, I have come to a couple of conclusions.
-It is definetly a budget friendly meal.
-Effort is minimal.
Next time, I would like to try using different kinds of flours, and definetly different sauces.
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ooh! i hadn't even THOUGHT of using other flours....that excites me :)
ReplyDeletei'm glad you went first. after your description of how easy it was, i'm not so intimidated to try now.
as for sauces, try this brown butter sauce they had in cooking light:
http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1867562
i tried this with store bought gnocchi a few months ago and it was delish. i can only imagine it would be that much better with homemade gnocchi.
did amelia tell you her idea for one month's trial? sushi! i said she had to participate too if she wants us to try sushi!
btw, i just want to let you know that i'm very proud of what a good little chef you've turned out to be.