Tater Trouble

Who's bright idea was it to try and make gnocchi for the first time today?? Talk about using my kitchen as a test lab. Even one of my cooks tried to warn me how long and labor intensive it would be. My reply?? It's cool, I have an extra prep cook today so I should have all the time I need. And I wasn't going to try anything fancy by infusing another flavor into it. That will come next week, if tonite's sell well. Which is better for the 2 hours that it took me to make!!

Ever made gnocchi? Bake potatoes, peel potatoes while hot, run through a rice strainer, mix with some egg, a little flour and a good amount of salt and white pepper. Traditionally with Parmesan cheese as well. Then comes the fun part of rolling out fist sized bits of the potato into strands that you cut about an inch inch in length each, then place on a sheet try to cool in the walk-in before blanching them...and finally, they're ready to boil.

Maybe next time I will teach my cooks how to make this stuff because they had a good laugh at my expense with the painstaking effort I put forth. The end product? I had some yellow beefsteak tomatoes delivered today so I made a yellow tomato puree with onions, celery, capers, and a lot of fresh herbs. I added a pinch of saffron at the end to make it something worthwhile.
All this during the speed bump while cooking on the line...maybe thats why it took so freakin long. I'm all about simple and quick with a very fine product, but some things do take time.

Any Italian chef will get a kick out of that and call me a tortoise though. But I'll tell ya what, add some grilled asparagus seasoned with some good olive oil, salt and pepper to the gnocchi plate and I think the final dish is worth every hour I spent on it today. I'm betting our diners will feel the same.