Gnocchi Alfredo

Gnocchi Alfredo

Backstory

Recently a local supermarket had placed a 10 pound bag of russet potatoes on sale for $1 which was too good to pass up, so I went and bought one. I have been using potatoes more and more in my cooking over the last several months so they would certainly be used, however I wanted to feature them here. I have already profiled roasted potato and mashed potato side dishes and I wanted a different way to prepare them. I thought about French fries, but I don’t have a deep fryer.

Gnocchi is Italian for “dumplings” and is actually plural for the word gnocco, and is usually made with potatoes and flour, however I have seen other variations use cheese, particularly ricotta and parmesan. (I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I learned of this pasta from an Olive Garden commercial.) There is a fundamental difference between this dish and others I’ve profiled in that the actual cooking of the pasta is relatively straight forward. It’s the preparation work that determines the success or failure of the dish. I also do not have the equipment available to make other, more familiar pastas (such as spaghetti, linguine or fettucine) from scratch so this is a good compromise.

Recipe

Because of the intricate preparation work, I turned to YouTube for some assistance. I was a little disappointed at what I found, as the demonstrations provided by professional chefs still weren’t explained very well, so I turned to the old and reliable: Food Network. Chef Anne Burrell of Secrets of a Restaurant Chef was the best demonstration I found, so I have included it below. For consistency’s sake I used her Light As A Cloud Gnocchi recipe, but I didn’t want to make that much so I adjusted the ingredient amounts and used the recipe I found at epicurious.com. For the sauce, I turned to Allrecipes.com.

Ingredients

3 large Idaho potatoes (approximately 1 3/4 pounds)

1 egg

1 3/4 cup Parmesan cheese, grated (divided)

2 cups all-purpose flour, or more if needed

1 pinch ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon pepper, freshly ground

1 tablespoon salt

1/4 cup butter

1 cup heavy cream

1 clove garlic, crushed

1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped

Ingredients

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Bake the potatoes until they are fork tender, about 45 minutes to 1 hour. While the potatoes are still hot peel and pass them through a food mill or ricer onto a sheet tray lined with parchment paper. When doing this pay careful attention to keep the potatoes as light and fluffy as possible. This will aid in keeping the gnocchi light. Refrigerate the potatoes on the sheet tray until cold.

2. When the potatoes are absolutely cold, transfer to a clean work surface. Beat together the eggs, nutmeg and cheese and pour onto the potatoes. Season with salt and pepper. Cover generously with flour. Crumble the potato flour mixture between your fingers. Begin to knead the dough until it is a dry homogeneous mixture. The dough should feel slightly moist, but not tacky. If too tacky, gradually add more flour.

3. Form the dough into a large log. Cut slices off the log and begin to roll into long ropes that are about 1-inch in thickness. Cut the ropes into 1/2-inch lengths. Cover generously with flour. Place the gnocchi in a single layer on a sheet tray dusted with flour.

4. Bring six quarts of salted water to a vigorous boil in a large pot over high heat. Drop about half the gnocchi into the boiling water a few at a time, stirring gently and continuously with a wooden spoon. Cook the gnocchi, stirring gently, until tender, about 1 minute after they rise to the surface.

5.  For the Alfredo, melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium low heat. Add cream and simmer for 5 minutes, then add garlic and 1 1/2 cup cheese and whisk quickly, heating through. Stir in parsley, toss with the gnocchi and serve.

Notes

1. Video Demonstration. As I noted above, the first three steps, as explained, might seem very daunting so I have broken it down by including Chef Burrell’s demonstration below. It is for this reason I have not taken as many pictures as I normally do.

2. Cooking equipment. My one exception to Note 1 is in step one where a potato ricer or a food mill is required after peeling them. I have neither. A work around suggested by Chef Dasalla is to press the potatoes through a metal strainer using a heavy spoon.

Potato About To Be Passed Through A Strainer

3. Gnocchi care. Use or freeze the gnocchi immediately. If freezing, place tray directly into the freezer. Once frozen, the gnocchi can be stored in plastic bags, in the freezer, indefinitely. When cooking gnocchi they can go directly from the freezer into salted boiling water.

Baptism Evaluation

Taste: 8

Ease of Preparation: 1

Sophistication: 5

Bottom Line: Yes

I first introduced Project: Baptism a few months ago in the Grilled Chicken Breasts In A White Wine Marinade recipe. At the time, I only noted that it is about a cooking competition. Well, the cooking competition I am referring to is FOX Network’s TV show that premiered this past summer, MasterChef and I will be submitting an application for Season 2 for which the show producers are currently casting. I do not live near any locations where I can attend an open casting call this season, so I have to submit a video of me cooking and plating a dish and I chose this recipe to demonstrate.

Since I started writing this publication, I have had a few requests to post a picture of me, but I have been reluctant primarily because I’ve wanted the blog to focus on my food, not me. However, since I needed to appear on camera cooking my dish, I thought I’d include the video below. (After all, I better get used to being on camera if I am going to be on a reality TV competition!) Since I have video documentation of the cooking process, any pictures I would have taken would be redundant.

Final Thoughts

While I don’t expect to be casted onto the TV show, I wanted to be able to say that I submitted the application. I also would like to give special thanks to my friend, Christopher, for his time and energy in allowing me to use his camera equipment and editing the casting video. I believe he sincerely enjoyed the dish because he finished the entire bowl of gnocchi. My wife also finished her dinner. If you want to try this dish, I recommend making the dough and forming the gnocchi over a weekend afternoon, freezing them and cooking this dish on a weeknight. After all, you can see how quickly this dish comes together.

Enjoy!