Gnocchi-dokie! (Butternut Gnocchi in Sage Sauce)

I tried my first gnocchi a couple nights ago, and it turned out to be quite a success despite me. Rather than a traditional potato gnocchi, I made a butternut squash version (simply because that's what was on-hand).

Using squash limits you just a bit in terms of the range and intensity of flavors you can add to the sauce--the squash itself is mild and vaguely sweet almost, and it would get overwhelmed by a sauce with heavy flavors. I ended up staying very simple, and it turned out to be really tasty.

One of the great things about gnocchi is that they keep for quite a while in the fridge or freezer. Up to 6 months in the freezer, if packaged properly, I've read. I made these a couple nights ago, and when dinner fell through, I stuck them into the fridge in a ziplock. We had them last night, and they were still great.

Here's the scoop:

• 1 butternut squash (doesn't have to be huge)
• plenty of wheat and white flour
• 2 eggs
• a shake of salt
• various spices to taste--I added a dash each of cinnamon, curry, and nutmeg
• a shake of pepper

For the (clearly very complicated) sage sauce:

• 4Tbs butter
• cream
• pepper
• fresh sage leaves

Cook the squash however you'd like, but without adding water--it just has to be soft. I cheated--I cut it down the middle, scooped the seeds, and cooked it in the microwave, cut side down, until I could easily dent the shell with a spoon. You could also roast it if you have time. I bet it would be even better.

Once the squash is cooked and soft enough to scoop with a spoon, do just that--scoop the flesh out into a decent sized bowl. Mash the heck out of it and spread it around and let it cool down a bit. You don't want it so hot the eggs cook immediately when you add them.

Meanwhile, beat two eggs together until mixed. Once the squash has cooled enough, add the eggs and work them through.

Add your spices at this point.

Now was the time of second guessing for me: adding flour. It took so much more than I thought it would that I didn't even bother putting an amount above. I had a false start where I added when I thought was enough, but it was too sticky to cut, and not a proper dough. Lesson learned.

Start by adding a cup of white flour, then alternate to 2/3 cup of wheat, back to white and so on, until you have a nice, flexible, workable dough. You'll know when you've reached this point--it'll be sticky and awful to try to roll and cut before then.

Meanwhile, put a large pot of water on, salt the water, and begin bringing it to a medium boil. Make sure you have a place to roll and cut the gnocchi, something to scoop them out of the hot water with (I used a large slotted spoon) and a platter or bowl in which to keep them after you pull them out.

Once you have a workable dough, take a golf ball sized chunk and roll it into a snake, and cut pieces about an inch long. Mark the tops of them with a fork so the sauce has something to grab onto. Once you've done this lot, drop them into the now boiling water, and let them cook while you make the next lot. The gnocchi float to the surface of the water once they're done.

Now it's all about a little assembly line involving only you. While the first batch is cooking, cut another batch. By the time those are ready the cooking gnocchi will be ready to scoop out. Voila! You'll be kind of amazed how much gnocchi this recipe makes. I have a whole bag in my freezer still.

Sauce time:

Once all the gnocchi is done, you can package some up for later, and try to get the rest of them as dry as possible. I ended up tossing ours in the frying pan. While the gnocchi were turning a lovely golden brown, I put the butter in another saucepan, adding the sage leaves and letting them bubble away in the butter to imbue it with flavor. Some people might want to take the sage out, but I left them in because they were pretty. I then added some cream and a shake of pepper and let it all bubble together while I plated the gnocchi. I poured the sauce at the table. Simple.

The gnocchi had a subtle, round butternut flavor with just a hint of sweetness, and the texture was chewy and substantial, like gnocchi should be. The sauce was surprisingly flavorful, for how simple it was, and it complemented the gnocchi really well. Gnocchi is pretty filling, so a little goes a long way.

Overall, I'd recommend this recipe if you have the time to invest initially. It wasn't quick, and it wasn't a no-brainer, but I came away with probably three meals worth of gnocchi, and the later meals will be incredibly simple and quick--just brown the gnocchi in the frying pan while making the sauce.

A Sweet Valentine's Day

The Boy and I went maple sugaring at the Cincinnati Nature Center for Valentine's Day! The center has their own classic sugar house with the boiling facilities and all amid a bunch of maple trees that they're just beginning to tap for the season. The class took us through all the steps of picking a tree, tapping, collecting, and boiling the syrup down. It was really fascinating. Here are some steps for tapping:

1. Pick a tree that is at least 10 inches in diameter at chest height.
2. When deciding where to tap, take into account large roots and branches, and try to tap above or below those a couple feet off the ground. That's where the sap supply is sure to be strong. If it's possible to tap on the south side, that's a good option, since it warms up, and the sap will flow more steadily.
3. Sterilize your drill bit in alcohol between each tree, since bacteria can be transmitted from tree to tree.
4. Drill--angling very slightly up and about an inch and a half in.
5. The taps are also called "splines." Spline is apparently a corruption of the word "spill," which is literally what the sap did when we drilled the hole.
6. When you pound the tap into the tree, listen for it to hit the back of the drilled hole--the sound of the hits becomes more resonant.
7. Hang and cover the bucket. Voila!

The sap flowed out completely clear and the consistency of water. It had a very very mild maple flavor, and just a hint of sweetness. We were told that making tea out of maple sap is absolutely fantastic, and I believe it! The folks working in the sugar house confided that in the mornings they sometimes scoop out a ladle or two of the hot sap before it gets boiling and pop a tea bag into it. The sugar house smelled absolutely like heaven--the wood fire, along with the mild smell of maple syrup cooking was wonderful.

Sap needs to be treated like milk when it comes to how perishable it is. It should be refrigerated if you're not going to boil it the same day, and once it becomes any color other than clear (brownish, or milky) it means bacteria's beginning to form, and the sap is turning.

You need about 5 gallons of sap for a pint of maple syrup--that's a whole lot of evaporating. The syrup boils in a massive vat with a series of trenches the sap moves through as it cooks. They stand by to skim off the impurities that rise to the top, and it slowly becomes one of my favorite flavors. They recommended that if you're going to make syrup on your stove top, you use 4 big pots, and slowly transfer the syrup around from pot to pot. If it stays on one place too long it darkens too quickly. How long it takes depends on the humidity, your stove, etc.

One thing I found interesting is that the thing that decides the grade of syrup is the color. "Grade B" maple syrup is simply darker and more caramelized. It also is supposed to have more maple flavor to it. That sounds great to me, yet it's the cheaper type--go figure!

Apparently there's a class on cooking with maple syrup coming up at the Nature Center, and I think we may need to get in on that too.

Out and About

We had a pleasant evening out the other night, with dinner at Pappadeaux and a movie. For those in the Northern Cincy area who have a hankering for really solid seafood/Cajun cuisine and an interesting atmosphere, I recommend Pappadeaux.

Whoever designed the inside of the place really did a great job--it was like stepping into a converted dock side warehouse in a town that was a cross of Hilton Head and New Orleans. The light was low, but not too low, and the kitchen was cleverly designed to look like a fish market. The patio looked like it would have been a really nice place to eat too, if it hadn't been so hot out. Lots of stonework, brick, and fountains.

We started with crispy alligator with creole sauce and the boudin, both of which were a hit, though the boudin was a little odd to look at. Since it's natural casing sausage stuffed with dirty rice and other things, it's not firm like a regular sausage. Which makes it sort of...floppy. Or flaccid, if you will. Moving on. Despite the look, it turned out to be excellent.

Dinner was a combination of various things that involved softshell crab, which was super delicious. It was a bit of an afterthought, too. You can add one to your meal for an extra $4.95, and it turned out to be my favorite part (not to belittle the rest of the meal). We ended up with just a ton of food, so we had leftovers for lunch the next day.

My kitchen goes East.. or at least, it tries.

So I made those samosas, and then I found an interesting recipe for Indian chappati bread on a website called Show Me the Curry. The site was made by two Indian women who are busy moms, but wanted to show people how to cook authentic Indian food in simple ways. I particularly like the fact that they add videos for most of the recipes. The videos aren't super-professional, which I like. You can tell you're in someone's real kitchen, and that Anuja and Hetal are friends in real life. More power to them for making a website that's such a resource!

The two recipes I've tried and that have been great are the chappatis (plain flatbreads good with yogurt, or for dipping) and the aloo paratha (uses the chappati dough), which is a potato stuffed flatbread. Be sure not to miss the video down at the bottom of the page.

I'm glad there were videos for them both, as the parathas were a bit difficult for a first-timer to get right. The recipe involves patting out flat circles of dough, placing stuffing in the middle, sealing it like a dumpling, but then flouring it, and actually rolling it flat again with the filling inside. Don't let this daunt you, though! I recommend trying them--we ate our parathas with a lentil dish from Tasty Bite, and they were great. I think with a little practice, this would be a pretty quick meal. I fiddled with the seasonings a bit, and since I don't care for cilantro, I used celery leaves instead, and that worked really nicely.

The only thing I would add for those of us who haven't rolled stuffed dough before is to make sure the stuffing is pretty dry--just moist enough to squeeze into balls. Mine was a bit moister when I first started, and my first paratha exploded when I tried to roll it flat. :( I still got a few leaks on a couple other ones, but all in all, they turned out really delicious and hearty.

They were much less delicate than samosas (though those are delicious in their own right), and I bet the completed parathas freeze well, an would be perfect for lunches and such.

Preach it, Bourdain!

Anthony Bourdain has concisely expressed everything I think about the Food Network in one fell swoop.

Where's my Alton? Where's my Mario? And WHERE in tarnation is my Nigella?? Yes, the woman happens to be gorgeous, but she's also unpretentious, slightly nerdy, and absolutely passionate about food.

Why does the Food Network assume I'd rather watch Paula Dean squawk, "Tuhday we're gonna make some deep fraahd budder topped with lard, y'all!" than something as interesting and mouthwateringly informative as Molto Mario?