Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Basic Things

cured_tuna_loin



Cured tuna loin and a piece of bread. I should gave stuck to that tonight. I took a quick snap of it because the fish looked so pretty and then got on with my first ever batch of gnocchi. I had a glut of potatoes staring at me balefully for a couple of days and so figured there was nothing for it but to attempt them. Hmm, I should have known better.

gnocchi

Actually, they weren't that bad. As is common with Italians I had difficulty finding two recipe's that agreed, egg or no egg?, how much flour? It seemed a bit of a minefield. I went with the eggless recipe in Twelve by Tessa Kiros, mostly because I only had one egg in the fridge. I realised I was in trouble when I had to mash the potato. I don't have a ricer so had to try and push the lot through a sieve. I gave up half way through and resorted to the hand liquidizer thingy. Bad move. It was creamy yes, but it had left lumps. I went with it. From here on in I was bodging it. Wrong flour, the dough stuck to the work surface etc. Still considering everything stacked up against them, they were actually ok. Not good enough to serve to anyone, but ok, and it's always nice to come out these things having learnt something. I figure let yourself make all the mistakes first time around by yourself and you'll live without awkward silences at the dinner table.

1 comment:

cookiecrumb said...

If you had that much success with your first attempt at potato gnocchi, bravo to you! My first batch was leaden.
Two things: Do get a ricer (I use a food mill; works great). And mash your potatoes while they're still hot, and get going on the dough as soon as they cool just to the point where you can handle them without wincing.