We had tried gnocchi on several occasions, including in Italy
and supposedly in fine Italian dining establishments, however it was never
light, fluffy or really that great. We decided to try a restaurant called
Bravo, in Kalamazoo and give the gnocchi one more try. Once again I had been lied
to, it was not good, it was deliciously and utterly amazing, love at first bite
and in that very moment I made it my life’s destiny to replicate it. After many
laborious tries at perfecting this recipe, I think I’ve finally done it.
Gnocchi
4 medium Idaho baking potatoes
1 whole extra large egg, beaten
1 T freshly grated parmesan cheese ( I add more instead of
adding salt)
1/4 t white pepper
1/8 t fresh grated nutmeg
1 cup all purpose flour- plus more for when rolling the dough
Chicken Breast – This task, fellow novices, is to find and use
your best cooking method to get juicy chicken breast. Grill it, saute it, roast it. Then post what you found and how well it worked. We will try out your method and post the best!
Marsala Wine Sauce
3
tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup
onion, diced
1-tablespoon
garlic, chopped
1/2 pound
mushrooms, sliced
3
tablespoons flour
1/2 cup
Marsala wine
1 1/2 cups
beef stock
Heavy
cream to taste (optional for the health conscious)
Salt and pepper, to taste
1. Pre-heat oven to 400
degrees. While the oven is pre-heating, prepare 4 russet potatoes with skin on
by rinsing, stabbing with fork to create holes to release steam, rubbing in a
bit of light tasting olive oil and sprinkling with sea salt. Bake the potatoes
for about 40 minutes. You want
them to actually be a little less done then you would for a normal baked
potato. Do not over bake; you do not want these to be mushy! While the potatoes
are baking you can prep the ingredients needed for your chicken breast and
Marsala Wine SauceJ
2. When potatoes are cool
enough to handle (or using rubber kitchen gloves if you are impatient like us),
cut potatoes in half with a sharp knife.
Remove the skin of the potato half and then grate each potato using a
cheese grater. Grate it directly
into a large bowl. You can also
use a ricer if you have one. We
don’t. So cheese grater it
is. Make sure no big pieces of
potato fall in.
3. Now you can let the grated
potatoes cool. Take this time to
cover a baking sheet with parchment paper. You are going to put your rolled and cut gnocchi on here
eventually. Also prepare a flat, clean
and spacious surface (we used a large wooden cutting board) by lightly coating
it with flour.
4. Add spices, Parmesan
cheese, and egg to the mixture. Gradually add the cup of flour, mixing all the
ingredients by hand. The key to
mixing the dough is using a really light touch. Really light. You want the mixture to just barley come
together. Keep adding flour until you can form it into a ball. If the dough
does not want to form into a ball (this has happened to us) angrily yell at the
dough. If that does not work, you
can add a little bit of water to help it come together.
5. Now cut the ball into
quarters with a knife. Remove one
quarter and bring it to flat, clean, flour coated surface. Cover the remaining dough with a moist
paper towel. Roll out the quarter of the dough with your hands on the floured
surface. If it is sticking to you,
get a bit of the flour on your hands.
Keep on rolling until the string of dough is about roughly ¾ of an inch
thick. Then cut the string into
pieces that are about one inch long.
Put all the pieces on your parchment paper covered baking sheet.
You can do fancy things with
your pieces here. You can press
them with a fork on each side to create fun ridges that also help catch the
sauce. We put enough sauce on them
in the recipe (and really every recipe), that we don’t think it is
necessary.
6. Repeat the process with
all of the quarters of dough. When you are out of dough, put the cookie sheet
in the freezer. Hmmm…step one
probably should have been clean out your freezer so you can fit a whole cookie
tray in there. Sorry. You’ve been meaning to clean that thing
out anyway. We’re helping you. Sort of.
7. Fill a medium size frying pan with about ½ inch of vegetable
or other mild tasting oil. Heat
this pan on medium high heat – don’t burn it, but hot. (This is to cook the gnocchi. If you want, you can simply sauté them
in much less oil or butter, but we like to fry things.)
8. We are going to start the
Marsala wine sauce. If you have
not cooked your chicken, this is probably a good time to start it as the sauce
takes about 20 minutes. Heat up a large
heavy saucepan on the stove. When
hot, add three tablespoons of olive oil.
Then add the onion, garlic, and mushroom to the pan. Sauté until the mushrooms are tender.
10. As soon as you are done add everything to the sauce, you can
pull those gnocchi out of the freezer and start frying them. Like everything else you fry, you want
them to be a light golden brown.
Flip them and brown the other side and place them on a cooling rack or
in a colander with paper towel in it.
You can cook them in batches that are about the size of the portion you
want per plate. 
 |
| I am soo good. |
Music pick of the day: Edgar Summertyme
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDJXSMv19oE&feature=plcp
Drink pairing: Bell's Kalamazoo Stout (we drove all the way to Iowa to get our Bell's fix. Worth it.
