The gnocchi experiment

I was actually thinking of naming this blog Big Gnocchi Plates at one time, the idea being that is in the same hypothetical Ghostface song name vein, but I had never made gnocchi before, and haven’t even liked it much in the past.  Anyways, I got to thinking about gnocchi lately (after hearing an anecdote about a woman at the nursing home where my friend works who was convinced that her family had been there and made gnocchi and sang songs and from seeing Tyler Florence do it on TV), and so I decided to give it a go.  I’ve also been thinking about carbonara lately, and an eggy, bacony, cheesey sauce seemed the perfect breakfast for dinner-y accompaniment to a potato pasta.  Besides bacon, potatoes, and eggs are all things that I have and the idea of getting my mom to eat raw eggs is extremely appealing to me.

In the end, the whole thing was pretty lackluster.  The gnocchi were a little tough and a lot misshapen, and I didn’t have enough cheese so the sauce was thin and sort of eggy.  The taste wasn’t bad, just a little bit bland.  I think if I were to do it again in the same proportions, I would use an egg less in the sauce and one and a half times the cheese.  Also, some fresh herbs like basil or parsley in the gnocchi would really knock this out I think.  I’m going to post the recipe as I did do it,  rather than how I would next time.

Gnocchi Carbonara

Ingredients

Gnocchi:

4 small potatoes

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

2 eggs beaten

Carbonara sauce:

1/4 lb. bacon cut into lardons (you can use pancetta or guanciale if you are the kind of person that has these things)

3 eggs beaten

1/2 cup pecorino romano cheese

freshly ground pepper

Instructions:

Preheat your oven to 450.  Wash the potatoes and prick them all over with a fork.  Bake them for an hour.

Halve the potatoes and scoop out the insides and run them through a ricer onto a marble surface or into a bowl.  Allow to cool for about a minute and then add 3/4 cup flour, eggs, and salt.

Work the potatoes, flour, eggs, and salt together into a sticky dough and knead in pinches of flour until it is dry and smooth.  Make the dough into a ball.  Don’t knead them too much though or they will become tough and dense.

Pull off handfulls from the dough ball and roll them into long snakes.  With a fork, cut off bite-sized pieces and holding it by the small sides, roll the tines of the fork over it to make it look like gnocchi.  This is hard to get down and only about a third of mine ended up looking right.  The rest were like little buff turds.  Lay them all out on a piece of parchment paper until they’re all formed.

Set a big pot of salted water on the stove to boil.

While waiting for the water to boil, render the bacon and crips up the bits in a skillet and then remove the pan from heat (I took it outside and stuck the bottom in the snow for a couple seconds to really cool it down).

When the water reaches a rolling boil, add the gnocchi in batches.  Fish them out with a slotted spoon once they start to float and put them in a bowl.

Reheat the bacon and add 1/2 cup of the cooking water.  Toss in the gnocchi, the cheese, and the eggs.  Toss it all together until it’s warmed through and incorporated and add plenty of pepper.

Serve in warmed pasta bowls with more pepper and cheese to taste.

Makes 4 – 6 servings.

Tags: bacon, cooking, eggs, food, gnocchi, pasta