Gnocchi, No Gain.

Being between things has given me the opportunity to fill in a lot of the gaps in my knowledge, largely in reading and cooking. I’m reading about the American Civil War (oddly, something I’ve left alone since a middle school obsession with Gone with the Wind) and building up the basics in my cooking repertoire. Last night, with Cassie and Devin in the kitchen, some smoky Vermont cheddar on the snack board, and hot tunes filling the air, it was time to try our hands at something I’ve wanted to make for a long time: gnocchi.

Gnocchi, while really simple on the page (almost no ingredients, all things you’d have lying around the pantry) are intimidating. Recipes are strewn with warnings of potential pitfalls and nebulous instructions like “add flour until you have a dough.” Don’t I already have a dough? What is this in my hands? It's difficult to measure progress any way other than simple trial and error. In such situations, I tend to choose one main concern based on past failures and focus on that. In this case, it was kneading. Don’t knead the dough too much! the recipes cautioned. Just leave that dough alone (provided you have managed to create a dough, which you may have done without realizing). I’ve made too many dense muffins to let my gnocchi be ruined by excessive glutinizing.

In that mission, I succeeded, because I don’t think the gnocchi were too dense. No, I don’t think they were too dense at all…

The problem is fairly easy to diagnose. I tend to take my recipes from multiple sources, which is a good strategy if you have any clue what you’re doing; it’s worked marvelously for me recently on chicken pot pie and quiche. It isn’t a great strategy in uncertain territory like this, because I forgot that I took my cooking time and my dough ratios from two different sources. Womp womp. Into the trash plopped the gnocchi. Cassie posed for one last memento before making us a pizza.

It’s impossible to get upset about this, though. I’ll definitely give gnocchi another go-cchi in future – experimenting is very productive when the process is as much fun as this was. Gnocchi seem like a great thing to make with a group, everyone digging their hands into the dough, rolling it out and shaping like the equally edible Play-Doh. Just make sure you have another dinner on deck just in case.

Gnocchi soundtrack: Fitz and the Tantrums, Pickin’ Up the Pieces.