As part of our three-day weekend festivities, a few of us Boston motsseurs (Jeffrey Sandris, FJ!!, and myself) took the train up to visit Robert Coren and John Gintell in their summer home on the north shore. I decided to bring along the materials and the recipe to try one of Jacques' childhood recipes from Monique that Arnold posted here a little while back. Yes, I decided to try to do Monique's Gnocchi.
Finding the ingredients was not difficult (thankfully, since I didn't actually go shopping until we were on our way to the train station), but when we arrived at the summer house at around pm, we realized that since Monique's recipe called for the gnocchi dough to "rest" for 6 hours, that we were in for a rather late dinner if we started it now. After much discussion, we decided to try it anyway.
The first problem was to find a big, sturdy pot in which to make the dough. Robert found an old iron kettle, which he and John decided had not been used in 10 years. We scrubbed it out before using it; it was exactly the sort of pot I would have thought should be used to stir some heavy mixture, like gnocchi or polenta.
The preparation of the dough was pretty straightforward. We were a bit confused when it asked us to let the dough cool, before adding the (beaten) eggs. We weren't sure how cooled it would have to be. We decided that if it was cool enough that it didn't cook the eggs, that this would be sufficient.
Then came the resting stage. We allowed it to rest in the fridge, but as mentioned above, we didn't really have 6 hours to let it rest. We decided that since Jacques was not here to censure us with deviations from the recipe, that we would see how a resting period of 3 hours would do.
After a couple naps, an old movie on the nostalgia channel, a shopping trip to get the other things for the meal, a short hike up to sunset point, we came back, and decided that it was time to wake up the gnocchi.
The dough had become quite stiff, and could be handled only with some effort. The next step in the recipe was to form it into "loaves". This seemed like an odd thing to do; I feel I should have formed it into loaves before allowing it to rest. I have reviewed the Clementine recipe that Arnold also provided, and see that in fact, she has you roll the dough out before allowing it to chill.
I have just reviewed the recipe, and realize that I added a step that was not in the recipe! The recipe reads;
then roll out into "loaves" about 1 in. wide and 3/4 in. high
Since I am familiar with little crescent-shaped gnocchi, I made these loaves about 10 inches long, then I sliced them into pieces about 1/2" long. The pressure of the knife against the loaf formed little crescents, very like those which I have seen before.
Then came the kitchen madness; we were nearing mealtime, so Robert and John were making visits to the garden to gather herbs and salad greens, I was doing all the final things for the gnocchi (poaching the gnocchi, making a white sauce (we decided to endure the sneers of clementine), figuring out how to light the oven, etc.) We decided to season the white sauce with an eclectic selection of herbs from the garden, and minced some garlic over the gnocchi, just as they went into the oven.
I have to admit, that after all this, I was really concerned with how a party of 5 was going to be able to eat a large baking dish full of basically flour, milk, butter and cheese. I expected a heavy, stodgy meal, and expected to leave half of it over. And of course, there were the spirits of Monique, Arnold, and, most critically, Jacques, who were looking down at the table as I began to serve it.
Well, I don't know what the spirit set thought of it, but it was a hit with those sitting around the table. Many second helpings were requested and consumed, and one diner was seen to nibble at bits of gnocchi after the meal was essentially over. Jeffrey even decided that he would forego his second grilled hamburger, to leave room for more gnocchi! FJ!! (who has earned the nickname "the grazing triffid" amongst his dining companions) was happy to take it off his hands, as soon as he finished his seconds on the gnocchi.
For the future, I will continue to reserve the gnocchi for special
occasions, when large amounts of food are called for. I think I
would like to experiment with different forms of laying out the
pasta, such as those suggested by Clementine. After all, it is just
a big ball of mush when you start, you could do with it as you
please.
