September 27th, 2011 by Dawn Becker

There are a few things culinary that most people agree are intimidating. Right at the top of the list has to be making soufflé. Whether cheese or chocolate, both types of soufflés threaten to collapse taking your spirit along with it. I’m not quite at that level of emotional risk-taking today so I’ve chosen to strike something less threatening off the middle of my to-try list. Today I created my first batch of hand-made gnocchi.

Not being lucky enough to be raised by a doting Italian nonna who has passed on the gift of pasta-making and the secret family sauce recipes to me since I was born — Oh Lidia! To have a grandmother like you — I have a healthy fear of making gnocchi. I’ve eaten terrible gnocchi, pasty, bland and heavy as a lead weight. I’ve also eaten delicious gnocchi, light, airy, pillows of goodness dropped directly from angels hands. So I was fairly concerned that all of my efforts would be wasted because I am certainly no angel.

It turns out, I might have the gnocchi knack.

Two disastrous results lurk when making gnocchi. The first one I mentioned above being the dense sinkers that come out gummy and not at all heavenly. The second disaster can occur during cooking when your gnocchi fall apart and disintegrate in the water. This is actually a worse result than making sinkers because you won’t have anything to eat. Both of these gnocchi disasters can be alleviated by the use of the right amount of flour, and in the case of the former, not overworking your gnocchi. Gnocchi that disintegrates in the water is usually the result of not enough flour incorporated.

My results are pictured above and while I have not yet learned to make them uniform in shape, I think they look kind of rustic and had a light and fluffy texture when cooked. However they could have used more flour to hold their shape better during cooking as you can see from the final results below. Taste-wise, I would incorporate a handful of grated parmesan cheese or a sprinkling of nutmeg in the next batch to counter the potato flavour slightly, which came through surprisingly stronger than I had imagined. A bit like a ball of mashed potatoes in my mouth yet still pleasing.

I served the cooked gnocchi with a sauce made with shredded meat from braised Angus beef back ribs. Here are the recipes which were enough for 2 entree servings of gnocchi plus a jar of sauce for later.

Gnocchi

2 medium-sized Yukon Gold potatoes

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1 egg

Bring a pot of water to boil and add the whole unpeeled potatoes. Boil for 25 minutes or until you can pierce a knife through the potato and it slides off easily. Remove the potatoes and allow them to cool a few minutes until you can remove the skins. The skins should peel off easily.

Place a food mill set with the smallest holes over a large mixing bowl and churn all the potatoes through. A potato ricer can also be used and I’ve heard it’s preferable but my condo does not like to fit kitchen equipment that only has a single purpose so a food mill is my tool of choice for this.

Add the egg to the bowl of milled potatoes and with your hands gently combine evenly with the potatoes. Mix in the flour a little at a time forming the mixture into a ball of dough. Add only enough flour so that the dough is no longer sticky. Place the dough on a floured surface and knead a few times. Do not overwork the dough as this is when the gnocchi can get tough. Cut the ball into four pieces and roll out each into a 1” rope. Cut the rope into 1” pieces. With the tines of a fork, gently roll it over the dough pieces to make an indentation on one side. Place the finished gnocchi pieces onto a tray and keep cool in the fridge until ready to cook.

To cook, boil a pot of water and add the gnocchi in batches. When cooked, the gnocchi will rise to the surface. Using a spider or slotted spoon, scoop out the floating gnocchi and serve with Braised Beef Back Ribs Sauce or another sauce of your choice.

Optional: Add 1 tsp of ground nutmeg or 1/4 cup of grated parmesan with the flour for more flavourful gnocchi.

Braised Beef Back Ribs Sauce

1 Tbsp ground cumin

1 Tbsp garlic powder

1 Tbsp onion powder

2 tsp paprika

1 tsp seasoning salt

1 tsp dried oregano

4 or 5 meaty beef back ribs

1 1/2 cups of beef stock

1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 medium onion, diced

1 carrot, diced

1 rib of celery, diced

1 clove garlic, smashed

1 tsp dried oregano

1 796 mL/28 oz. can of whole tomatoes, preferably high quality San Marzano tomatoes

Salt and pepper to taste

Mix together the first six ingredients to make a dry rub. Coat the ribs with spice rub and place in a plastic bag to marinate in the refrigerator for an hour or as long as overnight.

Remove the ribs from the fridge and bring them to room temperature 30 minutes before cooking. Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F. Place the ribs in a roasting pan, add the beef stock and cover with a lid or wrap with foil to seal. Place in the oven in the middle rack and braise for 3 to 4 hours, until the meat falls off the bone. When the ribs are ready, remove them from the oven and set aside to cool. Once cool, pull the meat off the bone and shred it or roughly chop it. Set aside.

In a large skillet, heat the olive oil on medium high. Sauté the onion, carrot and celery about 5 to 7 minutes until softened. Stir in the garlic and oregano and fry for 1 minute. Add the shredded beef and cook stirring another 5 minutes. In a large bowl pour in the whole tomatoes and crush them by hand to break them down. Add all the crushed tomatoes and juices directly into the skillet and bring to a boil for 2 minutes. Reduce heat to simmer uncovered for 20 minutes until the flavours meld together and the tomato sauce has reduced slightly. Pour over cooked gnocchi or your favourite pasta. Reserve the rest of the sauce in a tightly sealed jar in the fridge for another meal this week. 

September 11th, 2011 by Dawn Becker

September is always a busy time for me with the start of conference season and the boys back to school. While most other parents are ecstatic about the return of school, I find the regimen of the school hours, making lunches and homework duties a hard adjustment for all of us. Add to this that Cole’s birthday is on September 5th and the guilt I have in knowing I can never pull it together to organize a birthday party with his friends until October can be overwhelming. The cobbler’s kids have no shoes and the event planner’s kid has belated birthday parties.

Along with having a busy schedule, my writing outlet also suffers and I’ve been finding it harder and harder to take precious moments to post here. Having read a number of blogs, it seems that most non-professional bloggers have ebbs and flows in their writing as I’m experiencing and this is normal. I still enjoy writing even though my posts are more intermittent as this is a valuable outlet.

Trust me also that my food experiences have not been reduced. In fact, we just got back from a road trip to Cleveland, Ohio, where our sole purpose was to dine at Iron Chef Michael Symon’s restaurant, Lola Bistro. We did tack on a couple of fun days at Cedar Point Amusement Park in Sandusky, Ohio, which got me in the good books with the kids. And they were looking forward to our dinner at Lola Bistro as much as I was. The service at Lola Bistro was sincere and friendly. We all walked away feeling like we were kings. We ordered nearly every appetizer on the menu and split two entrees between the three of us. I would describe the food but I wonder if I can do it any justice to write about perfection. Let me just say that Cleveland is worth a visit, if only just to eat at Lola Bistro or anyone of Chef Symon’s other restaurants in the area. Plus it’s a 5 hour drive from Toronto, closer than Montreal.

Ah Montreal, another destination I enjoyed with Casey this summer. We booked last minute reservations at Chef Martin Picard’s restaurant, Au Pied de Cochon (or PDC as the insiders tell me) and got an 11PM seating. Their last of the night. Hopped into the car and drove like madness. It was a sumptuous meal and we left bloated and giddy. This is another place I would happily drive to for dinner. And I must mention that the special we had of veal bone marrow topped with sevruga caviar was mind blowing.

Today I did enjoy a few minutes of down time which I used to get into the articles in a new magazine, Lucky Peach, brain child of David Chang, chef of the famous Momofuku restaurants in New York, with two exciting new locations planned for Toronto in 2012.

This inaugural issues focuses on ramen, one of my favourite food subjects, and sadly it just rubs it in how little physical research one can do in Toronto with the severe lack of ramen restaurants that truly honour this dish. I won’t even go into how mediocre the ramen places are here having broken my ramen cherry in Tokyo so many years ago. It’s like your first taste of meat was kobe steak and then only being able to get top sirloin after that. No comparison.

Back to the topic at hand, Lucky Peach. I recommend this magazine as a must read for anyone who loves to delve into a topic. Not simple visual porn, this is more like erotica for foodies. Lucky Peach feels like an art house magazine that will surely be a keeper. Make room on your shelf because you’ll want to save this one to read again and again, or just to say you have if you’re more about collecting trophies than actually digesting the articles.