About two weeks ago my office had a Christmas party at Quattro, the restaurant at the four seasons hotel. After hearing the specials my ears perked up. One was a carrot soup with gorgonzola cheese. I love carrot soup (although sometimes it turns out kind of bland and boring, and several times i have screwed it up, coaxing out flavors out of nowhere that were unbearable), and i love gorgonzola cheese, but together? Sure, lets give it a try. Another special was a seared and then braised, bone-in, cut (for the life of me i can’t remember which cut)of veal with a red wine reduction and foie gras. I love braised meat. I love how when something gets cooked for long periods of time at low heat, sitting in a liquid, the fat breaks down into the sauce, and the meat gets so tender it makes me want to make a scene. I was also interested in the foie gras. I’ve never actually had it, but im getting curious. As a young jedi foodie i realize that this is something i have to do at some point, but i could easily see this special climbing up near $70 with all the sexy ingredients. Plus the boss was paying and i try and make a point not to be THAT GUY, so i opted for the $38 beef tenderloin.
The appetizer is really where im going with this. Rachel and i narrowed it down to a risotto and a gnocchi. Risotto was one of the things rachel learned how to cook while spending a semester abroad in Italy and something that we cook pretty often. A good risotto might just be one of my favorite things to eat. The texture of the risotto held together by that delicious gooeyness. On the other hand i also really like gnocchi. When its done right, light and fluffy, sitting in the right sauce, it is superb. I also like the simplicity. The basic gnocchi is made with potatoes (there’s something down home, earthy, and kind of blue collar to me about making pasta with potatoes, i like it), salt, flour, and an egg. Thats all folks. We decided on the gnocchi because it was something we didn’t know how to cook. The soup was fabulous, i couldn’t get enough of it . The gnocchi was very good. The beef tenderloin was uninspired and lacked passion and soul, i literally felt like the beef was just bored, sitting on the plate. Someone with more wine knowledge than me ordered a Pinot Noir that was incredible, but i haven’t asked around yet to figure out who did it and what it was. The food was good but i walked out wishing i had been more impressed.
Last week as we talked about it at the office, and exchanged pleasantries about how much we enjoy each other’s spouses and how fun it is to go out as a group, i started to think about my rational for Gnocchi. As ridiculous as it may sound, i would like to die having mastered (to my satisfaction) or at least have some hilarious failures cooking some form of most of the dishes i come across. I found my self in a dreamy state, thinking about how someday i wish i could learn how to cook gnocchi.
Then i had a reality check. “Snap out of it Romeo, you’ve got the ‘Silver Spoon’ at home, it will tell you how to make gnocchi. Get up off your butt and go do it. Quit talking and just go do it.” I go home, pick up one of my new favorite books, flip to the gnocchi section and sure enough, there are about 12 varieties just sitting there begging to be made.
Sunday i go pick up enough stuff to make 3 or 4 variations along with our regular groceries. Rachel is out of town until late tonight so today i am on my own. I decide to tackle the original gnocchi first.
Its pretty simple, just steam potatoes and mash them. Then add salt, 1 egg, and flour until it stops looking like mashed potatoes (i can’t tell you how much i wanted to add some butter), and starts looking like bread dough. Roll it out into long rolls about 1/2″ in diameter and then cut into 1/2″ lengths. Boil them in lightly salted water and when they rise to the top, they’re done. Top with your favorite sauce and chow down. Pretty simple.
For the most part it was pretty good. I really need to learn how to add pictures to this blog. Maybe next time. The recipe was to serve 4 but i cut it in two so as to just feed myself, but still had 4 times more dough than i needed. I also made the pieces a little bit too big, which left them a little bit undercooked in the middle and a little awkward to manage in one bite. I used a sauce we had laying around, a safeway select Arrabbiata sauce that was spicy and is normally pretty good on speghetti with some seasoned meat in it. I know, gnocchi screams for a homemade sauce but i wanted something easy to do because i was alone and wanted to focus on the pasta. I think it would work better with a lighter, tomato based sauce with some white wine and maybe a splash of cream.
Sometime this week Rachel and i will try to tackle the whole wheat gnocchi made with oat and barley flakes. Should be interesting. I will report back with results.
