Do you ever feel like a kitchen incompetent? That despite what seems like The Entire Rest of the World being able to cook something flawlessly, even going so far as to boast, “This is so EASY to make!” each and every time you try it, you fail? Believe me, it’s not just you.
Before this past weekend, nothing made me feel more unskilled and less deserving of your readership than gnocchi, which was a damned shame because it’s probably my favorite pasta in the entire world. After reading countless accounts by others about what a “cinch” gnocchi is to make and how you will “never buy it frozen again,” I tried to make it about a year ago and it was a complete and total disaster. I am not mincing words.
I’ll own up to this from the outset: it’s my fault. I don’t own a potato ricer or a food mill, but chose to make gnocchi even though I knew having one was a requirement. Potatoes, no matter solid they may seem, are about 85 percent water. What you dice into hash browns or thinly slice into a gratin dish are actually tightly clustered, thinly walled microscopic water capsules. This is why you “mash” potatoes with something clumsy rather than puree them with an immersion blender. And this is why when you make gnocchi, you need to get your potatoes into a fine mush without touching them with a water-releasing blade.
You hear all that? I *get* potatoes; they make sense to me. And with all of that arrogance, I decided that although I didn’t have a food mill–I mean, really, lord knows I don’t have any issue buying food-related gadgets, but I first need to be convinced that I’d use it more than once each year–I would simply press the potatoes through a small-meshed strainer, bringing them to the proper consistency. [Man, if there’s any sign that a kitchen disaster is imminent it’s got to be when you think you’ve out-smarted a recipe that The Entire Rest of the World has pretty much agreed on, and also, you’re making the recipe for the very first time.] I ended up with mush, and no matter how much flour I added–I quit when I was nearly two cups beyond the recipe’s suggestion–I could not work that potato batter into a moldable dough.
So, if I know what went wrong and why, why didn’t I get a potato ricer and try it again? Well, I have a reason, and his name is the Amateur Gourmet. Really! Just a few days after my disaster, Adam mentioned that he’d gone out and bought a ricer for the express purpose of making gnocchi but was still disappointed in the results! Surely, I rationalized, there was no reason for me to try again and only set myself up for further failure.
But last week, I saw a technique on About.com that was so cunningly ingenious, I was unable to resist trying again. Get this: you grate the potatoes. No food mill or ricer purchase required! (Which is great because you don’t have room for one anyway!) After grating the baked and peeled potatoes, you knead in some flour, salt and an egg, and your dough is complete! And people, these are some killer gnocchi, with a lightness that I’ve only had before at top-notch Italian restaurants. The secret is to use as little flour as you need, and with this method, you’ll need a lot less. I haven’t quite mastered the little shapes you make with a fork, but rest assured that this has no effect on the final dish.
For Sunday night’s Soprano premiere, I mixed freshly-boiled gnocchi with homemade pesto, which was crazy delicious but with a fairly low originality quotient. But on Monday, oh Monday, I browned them in a frying pan and tossed them with blanched haricot vert, quartered grape tomatoes, fresh cranberry beans, olive oil and parmesan for, seriously, the best pasta salad I’ve ever eaten. This dish was entirely inspired by Heidi at 101 Cookbooks, who opts for chanterelle mushrooms instead of green beans. I vote for mixing in any ingredients that strike your fancy. For us, the fresh cranberry beans and haricot vert in our store were too pretty to pass up, but I can imagine equally-stellar mixtures of white beans, chopped radicchio and bits of broccoli; black olives, sundried tomatoes and feta; or asparagus, fresh peas and lemon zest. Go wild with it, but only if you can accept that you may never boil gnocchi again. I sure won’t.
Gnocchi
Adapted from About.com
2 pounds Russet potatoes
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 large egg, lightly beaten
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