An Outline for Gnocchi

I have a tendency to use recipes for ideas, techniques, facts about particular foods, but not as strict guidelines - stepwise things - towards the near replication of someones else's creation. When it comes time to actually make something, I will likely google a few foods that I have on hand and maybe add to them a word like salad, or pasta. Searching things like turnip white beet spinach pasta, doesn't usually yield a single coherent recipe. So, you'll hear things like this from me a lot:

I don't have any measurements for you, but ...
The journey is half the fun, use these guidelines to discover your own sense of appreciation.
or, Unfortunately I have a tendency to document only with photos
or, I will try to be a little more comprehensive, and keep track of measurements in the future...
That being said, I had a few pounds of potatoes left - stored over winter by the Kilpatrick's - some greens, and mushrooms from Zehr and Son's Mushroom Farm. I used shitake mushrooms, the farm also grows oysters and both are incredible and would work a dish like this. I searched potato gnocchi, read a handful of recipes for the dough and consulted a great Italian cookbook, La Cucina: The Regional Cooking of Italy.

In my googling I found a recipe for gnocchi with a butter-sage sauce, bacon and mushrooms. I decided to use this as a launching point. I made the gnocchi fairly close to the recipe in La Cucina, although as usual with recipes for gnocchi, I had to fold in a significantly larger amount of flour. Once I got the dough to the right consistency, I rolled small handfuls into long, snake-like strips, then chopped them into inch long dumplings and put them into the freezer on lightly floured cookie sheets. The freezer part may not be essential, but it does give you more time to sit outside with the dog, change the music on the computer, figure out the sauce, get the water boiling, call your mom, etc.

With all the dough in the freezer, I moved on to chopping bacon from our pig. A couple pieces may do it for some, but I usually err on the side of more bacon. I fried it up with a little olive oil and started cutting the mushrooms and greens. I would have likely added a few cloves of garlic, but, our winter supply was exhausted (at the time, green garlic was not at the market yet, it is now, and works as a substitute for head garlic in any recipe). I removed the bacon when it was nicely browned and added the mushrooms to the grease and olive oil. I tossed them around for a few minutes then added the greens - a little spinach and kale combination. Once the greens wilted I added my secret weapon - a mixture of maple syrup and balsamic that I try to always have on hand. We buy syrup by the gallon and also get balsamic in large quantities from the co-op in Albany. I am constantly refilling a little jar with an ever-changing elixir of the two. It goes great with beets and other roasted vegetables, but here I used it as a base flavor in a light sauce. Cooking is a skill best improved through trial and error. I have had tremendous success using maple syrup and balsamic vinegar in a wide range of dishes, so I have to recommend it.

I boiled up the gnocchi, waited for them to float a while and removed to a colander. As usual I had way more gnocchi then we would eat in a single night, so I left some uncooked, and once they froze, put them in containers and stored them in the freezer.

Once the gnocchi were done I just added them to the wok I had cooked the bacon, mushrooms, and greens in. I added a dash of cream from Battenkill Creamery, a little more maple syrup, and some cayenne, salt and black pepper - and probably a good amount of other various spices. The end result was a nice sweet and savory, slightly creamy-sauced potato pasta - with a pleasing stick to your ribs feel to it.

Gnocchi are easy to make, a little harder to master, but with some hands on practice, I have found the right balance of potato, flour, and egg to get a fluffy, paradoxically dense dumpling. The result is a truly satisfying comfort food. Conveniently on this particular day, we had baked a loaf of bread as well.

Again, I will try to be a little more exact in my recording of recipes, but hopefully this was still slightly useful.