Tag: gnocchi

Home alone experiments

While A. is on business trip while my days at work are super busy, I’m oscillating between experimenting new recipes and easy to prepare but very satisfying food such as cheesy toasts and ochazuke… In my experiments, the sweet potatoes gnocchi with a 100% sesame pairing was definitely a huge hit! It mixes perfectly a traditional Italian recipe with Japanese flavors. A must try if you love sweet potatoes and sesame. Bonus, it is one of the easiest recipe ever… and here it is!!!

Sweet potato gnocchi and sesame (two servings)

  • 1 large sweet potato
  • Flour
  • 1tbs of sesame seeds
  • 1tbs os sesame oil
  • Salt and pepper

Steam the sweet potato. When tender let it cool down. Peel it and mash it. Add flour little by little to obtain an almost non sticky dough. Shape the gnocchi. In a pan boil 1-2L of water and poach the gnocchi. Drain and serve in plates, top with a bit of sesame oil and sesame seeds, add salt and pepper. Eat immediately.

Ashitaba gnocchi

This is far from being the first time I post about ashitaba (明日葉), or if you prefer angelica. I love this herb and the magic combination with potatoes and pork. I know I should be trying new combinations, but you have a solid recipe, it’s great to do it again and again with small variations. This new gnocchi recipe is even simpler than the previous one I posted a couple of years ago and as delicious! I served with pork filet cooked in olive oil and use the cooking juice as dressing for the gnocchi, with just salt and pepper. Of course olive oil is enough!

Ashitaba gnocchi (4 servings as side)

– 3 large potatoes

– a bouquet of ashitaba

– flour

– salt, pepper, olive oil for the dressing

As usual boil the potatoes with the skin. When the potatoes are tender, let them cool down a bit, peel them and mash them with a fork. Blanche the ashitaba and drain them very very well (as soon as they are cool enough squeeze them in your hands), then chop them finely with a knife or scissors. Add to the potatoes. The mixture should be creamy. Add flour and knead until the mix is dry enough to shape the gnocchi. As always the less flour the better, hence the need to avoid excessive moisture. When dry enough shape your gnocchi. I usually line them on a piece of cooking paper. Boil them until they float when you want to eat them. Dress with olive oil, salt and pepper or like me this time with pork filet juice.

Potato gnocchi x olive oil

I’m a great great fan of potato gnocchi. I love them just boiled with olive oil, or with tomatoes and basil. I love them grilles in a pan with olive oil and salt. I love them in more complex dressings (all my gnocchi recipes here!)… I also enjoy preparing them a lot, the texture of the potatoes and the flour together is quite unique and enjoyable to knead.

So when one our neighbor gave us a dozen of large potatoes, my first idea was to make gnocchi!

My first gnocchi recipe had egg in it, but once I tried without and discovered after discussing with an Italian friend that sone Italian recipes of gnocchi don’t have eggs in it.

So it’s really just potatoes and flour, and as little flour as possible makes the taste of the gnocchivery potato like which I kind of like.

I serve them most of the time simply with fresh tomatoes and basil from the garden. What I realized recently is that to be perfect, a tasteful olive oil, a bit of salt and pepper are mandatory. Last time I made gnocchi I only had some “regular” very mild virgin oil and it didn’t work well. The flavor of the olive oil was too bland, just an average olive oil, and it didn’t highlight the taste of the potato. For gnocchi you want an olive oil that has a good backbone, a strong olive taste without being bitter or too blazing either. That’s the key to enjoying gnocchi!

Parmigiano is optional…

Italia!

What was supposed to be a nice and peaceful trip to Italy and France started with quite a bit of a commotion with a few centimeters of snow in Paris… and I landed in Paris at 4:00AM only to learn a few hours later that the flights to Florence I was successively checked-in were all cancelled and I decided to fly to Roma instead and take the train and I arrived in Florence 12h later than expected… My long expected visit to the San Lorenzo market, to buy fresh fruits, vegetables, pasta, flowers and cheese was postponed… but not for long! As soon as I came back from work in Pisa on Thursday I went grocery shopping and I could enjoy cooking again the seasonal vegetables that we don’t have in Japan: chards, corn salad…  Sometimes with pasta, sometimes with gnocchi, always with fresh cheese. Here is one of my favorite recipe with corn salad, a fresh simple recipe but really tasty (picture below). I spare you the chard recipes because they were really too simple and the pictures talk for themselves.

Corn salad one plate: 

– 100g of corn salad

– 2 branches of celery

– 6 green asparagus  

– a handful of pine nuts

– freshly grated Parmigiano

– olive oil, salt and pepper  

Wah the vegetables, blanche the asparagus. Chop the celery in dice, chop the asparagus. Mix them together and add the pine nuts. Stir. In the plates, start with corn salad, top with the mixed celery-asparagus-pine nuts, add olive oil, salt and pepper and finish with grated Parmigiano. Enjoy!

Have a great week ahead! 

Vegan gnocchi

When we travel to Sicily last Xmas I bough a small gnocchi board, and curiously enough I haven’t made gnocchi since I have had it. It was time to change that! And the other day with D. and C. at home we discussed about vegan gnocchi, and I was rather tempted to try. The main reason for me was that I usually prepare gnocchi for two, and one egg in the preparation is way to much moisture. And without egg it work actually very well. I also used semolina instead of regular flour and that was really great. I didn’t measure anything, but they were very soft. What is great also without the egg, is that you can dey your gnocchi or at least keep them longer if you don’t eat them all at once!!!

As for accompanying them, for the first batch I only used olive oil and pepper. For the second, cherry tomatoes, broccoli and sausage. 

Empty fridge cooking

Or what to do with 3 old branches of celery… because when the weekend comes I usually start to run out of fresh vegetables, waiting for the weekend in the countryside to refill. So last night my fridge was looking really sad with a few old branches of celery, a piece or parmigiano and a pack of gnocchi. But that was just enough and perfect for a late dinner. Boiling the celery and blending it to a thick cream, adding olive oil, salt and pepper. And serving with gnocchi and gratted parmegiano. Have a beautiful weekend!

Friday’s gnocchi

It is almost a ritual when we arrive at our country house late on Friday evening to have dinner based on gnocchi. Each time I prepare them differently, each time with some vegetables of course. Recently I really like the combination of burdock and parsley, I find the tastes match perfectly and the parsley color enhances the grayish white of the burdock. Both are also great with butter or olive oil. And with the gnocchi it fits perfectly. I cut the burdock in small sticks and blanched them, then in a frypan with a bit of olive oil I roast them, add the parsley, boil the gnocchi in the meantime and serve, with a bit more olive oil, and black pepper. It goes very well with parmegiano too!

All the best for this weekend!!! 

Simple pasta

Friday evening and Sunday evening we usually have dinner rather late and I like to have something that can ready quickly with short cooking time, yet still with fresh vegetables. Pasta and gnocchi are usually my best picks for their short and simple cooking, and their versatility in terms of topping and arrangement. Recently I’ve been attracted by green leaves, but not necessarily spinach, and by trying novel associations. So here are two recipes of gnocchi and pasta that use greens. The meat is optional and can be easily removed for the gnocchi recipe and replaced by hard tofu in the pasta recipe for a vegan option.

Gnocchi with rucolla, basil and grilled bacon: for 2 people as a one-dish meal, you need a bundle of fresh basil and a bundle of rucolla, in Japan that would be a bag of each since they come conditioned in bags. You need fresh gnocchi for two (for homemade one check the recipe here), olive oil, salt pepper and additionally bacon and gratted parmegiano. Boil water for the gnocchi. In a pan grill the bacon if using any. Wash the rucolla and the basil, remove hard parts and cut roughly with scissors. One the gnocchi are boiled, in a large bowl add the gnocchi, the greens, olive oil, salt pepper and the bacon, stir well, serve immidiately. Add a bit of gratted parmegiano if you like.

Mizuna and chicken fettuccine: for this recipe for 2 you need: 2servings of fettuccine (fresh or dry); a large pack of mizuna fresh leaves. The younger the better. 100g of grounded chicken breast or 100g of drained hard (momen) tofu, olive oil, salt, pepper. Boil water for the pasta. In a pan heat some olive oil and cook the chiken or the tofu to obtain small crumbles. Wash the mizuna, remove the hardest parts. Cut in 3cm length segments. Add the mizuna in the pan, start with the bottom parts, keep the leafy parts for the end since they do not need so much cooking, add salt and pepper. Drain the pasta serve and add the topping. Add olive oil, salt, pepper, parmegiano to your liking. Have a good week!!!

Grilled gnocchi

What’s that you’ll ask me! But it’s so simple and so delicious that it is worth trying.  Usually you boil your gnocchi I guess but actually you don’t have to! You can simply grill them in a frypan with a little of olive oil, and takes even less time to cook them. Which, these days is really useful because work is quite busy and we both come home late and starving!

This preparation makes them soft and tender inside and crispy golden outside. It works both with homemade gnocchi or the one you can buy in some supermarket. I love to serve them with salt, pepper and tomato sauce. And I have been lucky enough to receive some tomato sauce my mother has made at the end of summer this year. If you don’t have some delicious tomato sauce, just serve them with a bit of olive oil. Perfect for a very quick little snack while waiting for dinner to be ready!

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