Sweet Potato Gnocchi Fail - But a nice creamy sauce

I realized that I had never shared the pictures of my failed sweet potato gnocchi attempt (mentioned in the previous post.)

A couple of the dumplings held their shape, but I had to rescue them from the boiling water with a slotted spoon. Whoops! I am not sure what was off about my recipe, but I will add more egg and flour next time. I think the sweet potatoes soaked up more liquid than the russet potatoes normally do.

I cannot find my notes on the sauce, but I started with some thickened flour and butter, added heavy cream and some powdered sage. I may have added a tiny bit of brown sugar. The sauce was fantastic, too bad it was like soup with my gnocchi!

Fried Gnocchi

A while back I tried making some sweet potato gnocchi. I had some sweet potatoes that were going to go bad, and while making normal gnocchi I mixed some mashed sweet potatoes into half of the mix. I also decided to try freezing the dumplings for the first time.

Unfortunately, this first attempt failed. When I tried to boil my sweet potato gnocchi they lost their shape and clumped together. I still had some dumplings in the freezer, so I needed to try something else.

I thought that the dumplings would keep their shape better if I fried them. I heated up some canola oil on the stove in a frying pan. I didn't want to use a ton of oil, so the oil was just deep enough to cover the bottom of the pan.

I let the gnocchi brown on one side (5-6 min) before flipping them over. This was careful work because there was a lot of oil splattering. Next time I am going to use a deeper pan! Thank goodness I had a splatter shield to protect me.

The gnocchi come out looking like mini tater tots.

The next big question was an important one... how do I serve fried gnocchi? I thought that I would turn this into a kiddy dinner by serving it with a side of manara sauce. (Well, salad isn't very kiddy, but I wanted to counteract all of that starch and oil!)

Keith had some other ideas, and while I was trying to not get burned (or to set the house on fire) he was setting up our table with candles!

Gnocchi is one of Keith's favorite meals. I will need to try something else next time I try sweet potato gnocchi, but I now know that frying them is a decent save.

Gnocchi for Six

Handmade gnocchi is a lot of fun to make, but I am always afraid of it clumping during boiling. (I had one disastrous experiment when I tried a variation of my recipe and I ended up with a mashed mush.) I wanted to make gnocchi with my Pals so I doubled the normal standard recipe, keeping my fingers crossed that I would be able to fit them all in one pot.

To set the stage for dinner, I steamed broccoli and placed it in the bowls. Cream and broccoli go so well together, don't they?

Before dropping the gnocchi in the water, I set up the creamy pesto sauce (discussed in the previous post) to simmer. I put the dumplings directly in the sauce after they floated so that way they would not stick together.

I was so lucky that there was no clumping! It was a bit stressful dropping so many gnocchi into the pot at once (trying not to compress them as I put them into the water) but it ended up even better than I could have hoped.

With any yummy sauce, you need to have some bread to wipe up what is left! I whipped up some bread machine pizza dough and twisted them into breadsticks. The dough was brushed with olive oil and sprinkled with garlic salt before baking.

I am very lucky to have great friends to share wonderful food with. Especially when those friends decide to come out to Evanston to visit. Anyone else want to come to dinner? :)

Homemade gnocchi

It was time for me to try making homemade gnocchi all by myself. I started with 1lb 9oz of russet potatoes and boiled them until they were soft (30 min).

After they were pealed and put through the ricer, I had 1 lb of potatos to work with for the dough.

It really does look like rice!

For the dough I used 1 lb of the riced potatoes, 2.5 oz flour, 2 tsp salt and 1 egg. This ended up being fairly salty, so the sauce didn't need any additional salt.

I still don't have a gnocchi board, so I scored them with the back of a fork.

I'm not sure the scoring made a huge difference, but it was easy enough to finish rolling out the entire batch of dough.

I wanted to make the gnocchi so badly that I hadn't given much thought to the sauce. I like to use a creamy pesto mix for gnocchi, but I couldn't bring myself to use a packaged sauce on my first batch of homemade gnocchi. I therefore whipped up a simple browned butter sauce.

I thought the packaged gnocchi I bought from Trader Joe's cooked up fast... but man these started floating almost as soon as I had them in the pot! I put them in a bowl to toss with the sauce, but the gnocchi were so soft that some of them got a bit squished. Next time, I'll either put them directly in the pan with the sauce or directly into the serving bowl.

Needless to say, Keith was very excited to come home for dinner. The whole process is so yummy, I know I will be making gnocchi a lot. Soon I'll have to try out some variations and see how well they keep frozen.

Pasta Workshop

Keith and I received a gift for a private cooking lesson from Artepicure last Christmas. We made sure to take advantage of this class before we moved away from the Boston area. The walk to the school was a little sketchy, but the classroom itself was full of character. The instructor and his wife live in the studio, and they have the most incredible collection of art... the walls are COMPLETELY covered with their collections.


The Class: Pasta Workshop
This class teaches the art of fresh pasta making. We will make potato gnocchi, filled ravioli and a hand formed pasta shape. This class will explain the science behind the choice of different flours, the proper cooking techniques for obtaining the best results, which sauces go with what shapes and the ease in which anyone, with a little understanding, can create beautiful artisan pasta at home.

My one disappointment with the class was that Keith and I did not prepare the sauces that went with pastas. But the meal we prepared was fantastic.

The best tip of the day was to use a food scale to measure the ingredients for pasta. The volume of flour can change a lot depending on humidity, but if you rely on the weight then you will get perfect pasta dough every time.

Two pasta doughs, one with egg (right) and the other without (left). The eggless dough was easier to kneed.

We made an egg pasta dough to create the butternut squash ravioli. (The instructor made the filling, but this is something that I've done myself before.) The big aid was how to fill and cut the ravioli easily (see pictures below.) When I made ravioli myself, I cut out circles and then folded them in half with the filling on the inside. I can see how I could make them much faster using this method. I also learned how great it is to use a pasta roller - rolling the dough out by hand is so hard!

I forgot to take a picture of the final dish, but the ravioli were served in a sage and browned butter sauce.

The second pasta we made was Orrechietti (translation - little ears). These were completely hand shaped. First, you roll out the dough into a snake, and then cut it with the pastry scraper into even pieces. You then press each piece down with your thumb to form the ear-shaped pasta.

I thought the flavor of the dough was great, but the texture of the shape was a bit reminiscent of spaghetti-o's (especially since it was served with a tomato sauce.) This would be a great shape to make with kids - it is a fun "craft" project.

Last (but not least), we made gnocchi. This was the dish that we were anticipating the most, since Keith loves gnocchi so much (I love them, too.)

This was the star of the day. These gnocchi just melted in your mouth. They were served in a creamy pesto sauce (just heavy cream and pesto and bam!) I have never tasted gnocchi this fresh in my life. This is a great kind of pasta to make at home, because the equipment that you need is minimal (just a potato ricer). Sure, having a gnocchi board would be great, but you can score them with a fork or just leave them unscored. This dough is so fast to make, I can see myself making gnocchi frequently (which will make Keith very happy!)

Immediately after the class, I went home and added some of the tools from this workshop to our registry (food scale, gnocchi board, pastry wheel and pastry scraper.) After this lesson Keith was also on board for the KitchenAid Pasta Roller Attachment)


Class Notes (I am afraid that I am going to loose the sheet that came with the class, so I am making note of the proportions for each of the pasta doughs here. )

• Egg Pasta Dough
• 9 oz all-purpose flour (2 cups spooned and leveled)
  
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt (or 1 tsp table salt)
• 2 large eggs
• 1-3 tablespoons cold water
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
  
• Pasta Dough
• 12 ounces all purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt
• 6+ ounces cold water
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
  
• Gnocchi
  
• 1.5 lbs russet potatoes (We learned that the most common error in gnocchi preparation was the wrong choice of potatoes.)
• 3.5 ounces unbleached all purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
  

Gnocci in a Creamy Pesto Sauce

Today I'm going to talk about one of Keith's favorite meals: Gnocci in a creamy pesto sauce. Normally I use Trader Joe's brand, but this time I am using whole wheat that I picked up at Whole Foods. When Keith and I took a pasta workshop cooking class, we made fresh gnocci which doesn't compare to this dish... but for pre-made gnocci this is actually pretty good. (Don't worry, I plan to start making fresh gnocci at home soon!)

Everything I need for a yummy dinner!

Normally I serve this dish with steamed asparagus and broccoli. Today, I decided to do something a little different (mainly because I had no broccoli.) I had some shallots, so I decided to saute some shallots in a small portion of the olive oil before adding the milk and remaining oil to the sauce. I also decided to add some spinach.

I think the more I keep track of what I do in the kitchen, the more new things I try and therefore the more new things I discover.

I added an extra 1/8th cup of milk to help add volume for the spinach. The sauce is another thing that I would like to make from scratch, but the mix is a pretty good "cheat". I added the spinach after I turned off the heat from the sauce.

The sauce before (left) and after (right) adding the spinach

I steam the veggies in in the same water that I use to cook the gnocci. Since gnocci only need a few minutes to cook, I take care of the vegetables first.

Setting up to add the gnocci.

I had been making this meal for a while when I suddenly discovered that it was completely vegetarian. We frequently have dinners with some friends of ours, and one couple is vegetarian so I was always looking for complete meatless meals.

I have no idea why I started arranging the asparagus spears like this, but it seemed like the best way to get them to fit into the bowl.