Gnocchi with Pesto

There are some things that I am completely afraid to attempt to cook, but as of last week, there is one less of those things. Since forever, I was terrified of gnocchi, and it had nothing to do with the process of making the dough and cutting the pieces. I was afraid of the result. I remember an episode of Top Chef in which someone, and now I can’t remember who it was, made gnocchi. One of the judges, can’t remember which judge either, held one little dumpling on a fork above his plate and let it drop. It thudded to the plate like a heavy ball of paste. That’s what frightened me. If I was going to cook potatoes, rice them, make dough, cut it into little pieces, boil them, and make some kind of sauce for them, I wanted them to be light and pillowy and delicious. So, for my first foray into gnocchidom, I gathered several sources of information and learned that every cook seems to have a different opinion about what makes perfect gnocchi. Marcella, in Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, recommends boiling potatoes, and she boils them, skins them, and purees them in a food mill. Mario, in Malto Italiano, uses russet potatoes instead, but he also boils them, skins them, and purees them in a food mill. Anne Burrell, who calls her recipe "Light as a Cloud Gnocchi," uses russet potatoes, bakes them, skins them, and purees them in a food mill. Last, I had the good fortune to watch David Bull make gnocchi right in front of me at a Central Market cooking class that I attended earlier this summer, and his potato choice and cooking method were the same as Anne Burrell’s. So, three of them used russet potatoes, and it was split two to two for boiling vs baking. I nervously looked from one recipe to the next, comparing notes, biting my nails, and finally jumped in and made my first batch of gnocchi.

It killed me a little to ignore Marcella’s advice, but russet potatoes seemed like the fluffier choice, so that’s what I used. And, again, since baking seems to produce a fluffier cooked potato than boiling, I ignored Marcella and Mario and baked rather than boiled. I don’t own a food mill, so I used a ricer to smoosh the cooked potatoes. Then there are the eggs, if you’re adding eggs that is. Marcella recommends that you don’t, but everyone else was for eggs. Marcella explains that gnocchi from the Veneto are cloud-light and are made with no eggs. She goes on to say that gnocchi dough with eggs is easier to handle but can easily become rubbery. For my first time with this, I felt like I needed eggs if this was going to become a dough, so to the four big, riced potatoes, I added two eggs. David Bull used semolina flour while everyone else added all-purpose flour. I used all-purpose. You should start with half the suggested flour and work in the rest as needed. Two other last ingredients were parmigiano which Anne Burell added and I didn't and chopped chives which David Bull added to his dough and so did I. Everyone says to knead the dough gently and don’t over mix it. Anne Burrell leaves all the ingredients on a board and folds in the eggs and flour with a bench scraper. That seemed like a good idea, so I did that. Last, when you have a cohesive dough, you break off pieces, roll them into ropes, and cut the ropes into gnocchi. You can leave them like that or roll them on the back of a fork or along a cute gnocchi board to make grooves in them. You press with your finger as you roll so each piece has a dent one side and ridges on the other. I have to explain that I bought the cute gnocchi board months ago as a way of convincing myself to make gnocchi. It worked eventually. Once you have your finished gnocchi, you can cook them immediately or freeze them. I left mine in the refrigerator for a couple of hours before boiling, draining, and adding sauce.

For the sauce, I went back to Marcella and followed her instructions precisely for basil pesto. It’s pretty much what you would expect for pesto except that she adds three tablespoons of softened butter after she stirs in the cheese. It was a lovely pesto. She recommends it as one of the best sauces for potato gnocchi, and I’m a believer now too. In an attempt at balancing the meal, I sauteed some sliced summer squash and mixed that with the boiled gnocchi before topping it all with pesto. After all of that, was there a thud when a piece was dropped onto a plate? No, believe it or not, they were truly tender and delicate although not quite perfectly formed. I actually wondered if I didn’t knead the dough quite enough. I’ll work on that next time, since there will definitely be a next time, and I might even try boiling the potatoes and not adding eggs.

Neapolitan Crostini and Scrambled Eggs with Bottarga

We’re blessed with a few pretty amazing grocery stores here in Austin, and we also have some great ethnic markets and specialty shops in addition to a lot of locally produced items sold at our farmers’ markets. Yes, I spend a lot of time shopping for food, and I’m driven completely insane when I can’t find certain ingredients despite having all these great places to shop. I once spent the better part of a day on an unsuccessful search for salt-packed anchovies, and I’ve never seen bottarga sold locally, and fennel pollen was a whole other story. The good news is that I recently learned of an online source for all of that and more. I was offered samples of a few products from Sausage Debauchery which offers a lot more than just sausage, and I was thrilled with the quality of everything I received. For my first use of the Sicilian, salt-packed anchovies I received, I decided on the Neapolitan crostini from Molto Italiano.

Before using the anchovies, I soaked them in a few changes of cold water and drained them. Then, I split each anchovy lengthwise and removed the spines. For the crostini, toasted bread was rubbed with a raw garlic clove. Then, the bread was topped with a fresh, Calabrian ricotta that had been mixed with red pepper flakes, black pepper, and chopped fresh oregano. The anchovy fillets were placed on top, and the crostini went back under the broiler for a minute or so. The ricotta was nicely softened and warmed, and the anchovies became glistening. I like anchovies, and I’ve enjoyed a lot of different kinds and brands of anchovies in a lot of different dishes, but these were what anchovies are all about. There was no tinny taste, and the flavor wasn’t masked by any oil often used in packing. They were a little salty, and I’ll rinse them even more carefully next time, but the flavor of the little fish themselves was fantastic. To store the remaining anchovies, I packed them into a couple of disposable, airtight containers, covered them with coarse sea salt, and put the containers in the refrigerator.

Another product I received was grated mullet bottarga from Sardinia. I was inspired by a scrambled egg and bottarga dish I’d read about in the The Zuni Cafe Cookbook. The Zuni dish is a very carefully prepared version of scrambled eggs in which slivers of butter and some grated bottarga are whisked into the eggs before they’re slowly and gently cooked over low heat while stirring with a wooden spoon that has been rubbed with garlic. It’s then served with more grated bottarga on top. It sounds lovely, but I was rushed and just scrambled some eggs in melted butter the same way I usually do and then topped them with the grated bottarga. I’ll try the very careful preparation next time. There’s a cured flavor to bottarga, not unlike smoked salmon, and it was a treat with the eggs for breakfast. It tastes of the sea in a way that I like, and it would be a nice topping on breadcrumb-crusted, broiled clams. I also look forward to using some of the grated bottarga on pasta. Although this is cured fish roe, there are no chemical preservatives used as it is simply dried with salt. The products I received were really good stuff, and the site has a lot of other great things to offer as well.

Spicy Sicilian Chicken

I must have been feeling a little lazy yesterday because I wanted a dinner that would mostly cook itself. This stew from Molto Italiano did that, and as a bonus, it required some wine but not an entire bottle. Since the vegetables refused to chop themselves, I had to do that part, but my next task was to sit back and sip the remaining wine while the stew simmered. Lazy is good sometimes, and so are one pot meals.

Mario insists that this dish is to be spicy. I used chiles de arbol for the five dried chiles listed in the ingredients, and I broke them into pieces while adding them to the mix of vegetables. They did their job in delivering a good level of heat to the dish, and the instructions direct you to add some red pepper flakes at the end of cooking for added zip. So, yes, this was a lazy, simmered, one pot meal with zip. Could it get any better? It could. The vegetables included chunked eggplant, carrot, celery, potatoes, and tomatoes and thick strips of bell peppers. Sicilian olives and rinsed and drained salt-packed capers were added as well. I was surprised that there were no onions or garlic included, but there was plenty of flavor just as it was. A chicken cut into eight pieces was browned in a large skillet. The pieces were removed to a plate and the vegetables, olives, capers, and dried chiles went into the pan. A cup and a half of dry red wine was added. I used an inexpensive Montepulciano d’Abruzzo. The browned chicken was added back to the pan. It was brought to a boil, reduced to a simmer, covered and allowed to cook itself, and I sat.

The chicken I used was kind of big, so I gave it extra time to simmer. The tomatoes softened and became one with the sauce. The other vegetables attained a lovely tenderness. The potatoes were cut into big enough chunks that they held their shape, and they turned a pretty pinkish color from the wine. I put just a little more effort into this meal than I really had to because I decided the sauce could be thicker. I transferred everything to a large serving bowl and turned up the heat to reduce the sauce and then poured that delicious, rich wine and chicken gravy over the stew. It was garnished with chopped parsley and mint and red pepper flakes and served with bread for dipping. It was a hearty, easy meal that makes arguably even better leftovers. I may let dinner do the cooking more often.