Food + Wine

New School Italian

Let me preface this by saying that I am not Italian.  I’m just a busy mom who cooks dinner from scratch for her family each and every night.  And sometimes that ‘from scratch’ needs a little help, a little short cut.  I mean, really.  Who doesn’t love a short cut?  I’ve made gnocchi before, and I really love doing it.  Even with my busy schedule, if I can carve out the time to do it, I love the method of making gnocchi.  It makes me feel a little closer to all of the women who have been doing this same thing for years and years for their children, it’s relaxing and comforting to me, like making bread.  I probably even smile while I’m doing it.

I make sweet potato gnocchi*, usually with whole wheat pastry flour or spelt flour, I make parsnip gnocchi using the same, and sometimes I make plain, yet delicious gnocchi using white potatoes instead of the sweet.  I go through all the necessary steps, following tradition for the most part, except that I don’t usually make the indentations on my gnocchi.  That, I can live without.  I know it’s traditional and I know its purpose is to hold onto the sauce better, and I get all of that but…it just takes a really, really, long time after I did all the other steps.  And it tastes the same to me.

But today, as I was making my gnocchi, I looked down at my big bowl of dough.  I got to the point where I usually would have separated it into sections and rolled each section out into dowels and then sliced pieces off of each dowel to make the little gnocchi.  But this time I stood over that bowl, and thought,

‘hmm…what if…’

I reached my hands into that bowl of dough and took out little pieces and rolled each piece in the palm of my hand to make little balls, as if I were making truffles…

 

‘Could this work?  There’s no way this could work…it’s too easy.’

And then, once my water came up to a rolling boil, I looked down at my little balls and decided to do something I have never, ever done before.  I picked up each of those little balls and gave them a special treat.

I dropped those gnocchi-lookin’ balls into the boiling water and cooked them like usual.

And when I tasted one, I smiled.

(*My other gnocchi recipes:  Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Leeks and Tarragon Cream, Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Braised Collard Greens and Sausage.)

WANT MORE?

SIGN UP FOR EMAILS!

WANT MORE?

SIGN UP FOR EMAILS!

WANT MORE?

SIGN UP FOR EMAILS!

Previous Post Next Post

You Might Also Like

No Comments

Leave a Reply