I Meet Your Four Cheese Gnocchi, and Raise you Homemade Pasta

That was gambling speak, and a reference to Chopper and I’s most recent recipe for the Black-Choptiany Bi-weekly Bi-Continental Culinary Throwdown. The Chop has been unable to complete the most recent gazpatcho recipe – which he has already ensured me he will do with great caution – because he’s in Italy! He’s there for an energy conference, and his university actually paid to send him to Rome.  So, inspired by his new surroundings, where he has been eating this nearly daily (motivated by both a genuine love of gnocchi, which I can attest to both of sharing, and, I suspect, the reality that no one in Europe knows what “vegetarian” means )  he suggested this Quattro Fromagi Gnocchi recipe – complete with video of actual Italian guy cooking!

 

So, while Chopper has been busy globetrotting and learning how to save the planet, I have been in southern California, working on my tan (I think they will make me an honorary Mexican soon) and very leisurely reading a book that is somewhat relevant to my thesis. But more the former than the latter, honestly. So I figured I would not only rise to the challenge of a holy shit so rich four cheese sauce, but I would try my hand at making the gnocchi myself. My mum has done it before (never for my benefit) and assured me that it is very manageable, and so with that, I bought me some russet potatoes and a ricer and got to work.

I had found a variety of recipes, but the one my mum recommended to me was this one, from epicurious.com:

Ingredients 

1 1/2 pounds russet potatoes, scrubbed

1 cup (or more) all purpose flour

1 large egg yolk, beaten to blend

1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt

Large pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

1 tablespoon olive oil

Directions

Preheat oven to 400°F. Pierce potatoes in several places and bake until soft, about 1 hour. Cool slightly. 

Cut potatoes in half. Working in batches, scoop hot flesh into potato ricer or food mill. Rice potatoes onto rimmed baking sheet; spread out and cool to room temperature.

Line large baking sheet with parchment paper. Transfer potatoes to large bowl. Add 1 cup flour; toss to coat. Form well in center of potato mixture. Add egg yolk, coarse salt, and nutmeg; stir with fork until mixture is evenly moistened (mixture will look shaggy). 

Turn mixture out onto lightly floured work surface. Knead until dough comes together, sprinkling dough with flour very lightly only if dough is very sticky. Form dough into ball; divide into 4 pieces. 

Roll each piece between hands and work surface into 3/4-inch-thick rope. Cut each rope into 3/4-inch pieces. Place gnocchi on prepared baking sheet.

 I recommend it, if only because baking the potatoes saves you from having to clean a pot you would otherwise use to boil them.

One may be tempted to skip some steps in this – not using a ricer, and ricing the potatoes straight into the bowl, rather than dirtying a baking sheet were the two that I toyed with. Don’t. Ricing the potatoes gives them the necessary light texture for gnocchi and it allows for you to blend the flour in much more evenly (so says Bonny – and her culinary word is gospel!). And the reason for ricing onto a baking sheet, rather than into a bowl? The thing with gnocchi is that you really don’t want to the dough to be moist – then you get soggy dumplings (which sounds gross enough to be a deterrent, don’t even think about the reality of that in your mouth...). So, by ricing the potatoes onto the tray, you allow them to cool evenly, quickly and without trapping the moisture of the potato.  

Tricky parts? Well, probably the first half of my dough was too moist – I began mixing in more and more flour as I went along, testing to see which would be superior, the stickier or stiffer dough. It was definitely the latter. Also, I broke my dough into 8 pieces, since I found it hard to continue rolling out the dough into the necessary gnocchi “logs” if they got too long. Also, don’t bother making the round marks with your fork – it takes forever to do, and I prefer the rustic look of the plain gnocchi pillows.

The hardest thing I found with making this dinner was timing. I don’t mind spending forever in the kitchen doing prep work, but I get really stressed out when everything needs to happen in rapid succession. You should see me make pad thai – I’m a god damn crazy person. I opted to start the sauce first, to which I actually added a FIFTH cheese (take that, Choptiany) – gruyere. I know it totally throws off that Italian cheese thing, but I didn’t buy enough fontina, and Bon warned me against Mozarella, which she says doesn’t melt down well into sauces. So gruyere. We had it kicking around.

I stopped using the video as my guide – genuine Italian guy be damned! I waited for each cheese to melt down almost all the way before adding the next. Also, my gorgonzola did not look like video-guy’s did – it was firmer, and rather strong, so I added less than was called for. As I added the cream, it was time to pop in the gnocchi. This is where things got stressful. The sauce was simmering (and needs some pretty constant attention to keep the cheese from baking to the bottom of the pan or forming a skin on the top) and the gnocchi was quickly rising to the top of the pot (and I did get to experience the inevitable over-boil of pasta water, of course). 

Thanks to the gnocchi recipe, I made two, what I’m sure will prove to be life-long, changes to the way I make gnocchi. For one – the slotted spoon removal. Why did no one tell me this before? I started hating making gnocchi because of the mess it made of my colander. Well guess what – fuck the colander and use a slotted spoon, removing your cute little dumplings a couple at a time. And put them where? Into a frying pan! I had fried gnocchi once, but had never thought to do it myself. I think a little crisp coating (and the salt from the butter in the pan) goes a long way.   

And the sauce? Uh...I little runny. So Bon taught me a trick with a fancy name - beurre meuniere. It is actually just equal parts butter and flour, but it is great for thickening sauces (and explains my failed attempts at thickening stew with just flour, which floats to the surface and doesn’t blend...whoops...). So added a bit of that and it came along beautifully. Added the fried gnocchi straight into the saucepan and from there, to the table.

And it was really good. I mean, really good. I will definitely be making my own gnocchi again – it is the same sort of soothing process of making risotto. Those Italians must be the most blissful chefs.

Bon Appetito!