Sunday, January 17, 2016

Finally Gnocchi!

I so wanted to make gnocchi, but the first time I tried it, years back, it was such a disaster that I decided that I should just eat this in a restaurant.

This lasted until one day I came across a Stanley Tucci recipe in a Waitrose magazine.


Ingredients:
675g floury potatoes, unpeeled
1 egg lightly beaten
1 egg yolk, lightly beaten
2tsp olive oil
1 tsp salt (I think it needs more salt)
100g +/- flour
80g freshly grated parmigiano
110 g unsalted butter
10 sage leaves



To make a gnocchi,  boil the potatoes until very tender.
Peel off the skin, mash it (I used a potato ricer).
Spread onto a flat workspace and cool.

Gather the cooled potato in a mound, an a make well in the center. Put the beaten egg (the whoe and the yolk) and olive oil, and season with salt. Place the flour and parmesan outside the potato and using a fork gradually mix in the ingredients to form a soft dough.

Once come together knead the dough on a cutting board surface. Cut into 4 pieces, and form each piece as a  long sausage.
Bring a large pan of water into boil. Lightly flour the surface and cut the sausages into small pillow shapes.  Here I used one sausage, and froze the rest.


Cook the  gnocchi in water. They sink first but come to the surface as they cook.

Now, we ate them in two ways.
The first one is we melted butter, and cooked the sages, and then coated the gnocchis in the butter.
The sage butter is a very good complement to this pillows of soft dough.


As a second option, using the frozen ones, in a week day,  we covered them in more parmesan and baked  them in the oven a bit.

Delicious in both ways, but does better with a little more salt.




Friday, January 1, 2016

A potential classic: Potato Paratha

It took us by surprise that this was so easy to make! I love parathas, and the recipe is from Abel and Cole.



The ingredients are:
500 g potatoes, peeled and cubed
2 tbsp of olive oil
2 tsp cumin seeds
Thinly sliced fresh chilli
A good pinch of  thyme 
A little grating of orange zest
A good pinch of sea salt 
1 to 2 mugs of plain flour

Boil the potatoes in salted water till mashable. Drain, mash with a potato ricer (or how you like). 
Add oil, spices, orange zest, chillies, salt

Sift the flour little by little to form a soft dough. 


Generously dust a cutting board with flour. Scoop a golf-sized lump of the dough. Roll it on the board, flatten by hand. Go until 1cm thick. 

Place a large pan over high heat - no need for oil. Turn the heat down after a few mins. Cook each side till golden. 

And enjoy!