Fork My Life: Mint Gnocci

Every night my station is responsible for making dinner for the security guards who work the graveyard shift. Typically, I am told to look in the coolers and see what needs to move. Subsequently, the poor guys are subjected to whatever culinary misadventure I've gotten myself into. But on super slow days like Monday and Tuesday, I make it my mission to learn something new. Luckily on slow days, I have the salaried, incredibly talented chefs hanging around that I get to squeeze for information. I've officially been limited to 2,000 questions -20 per topic per day.

Monday's lesson was in lasagna but only because I was itching to make pasta dough and had to come up with something I haven't done yet to justify the dough. Monday's homework was more up my alley. I was told to research gnocci because tomorrow we were going to make perfect gnocci and I had the pasta guru himself to steer the boat.

I came to work ready. I thought about the produce cooler and what we had too much of and what was on it's way out. Mint and peas. I thought about what pairs with mint and peas. Lamb! The overnight security guards were in for a treat- Mint Gnocci with Spring Peas, Milk Braised Lamb and Preserved Lemon.

Step One:

Roast your potatoes and

go to Rendezvous Farm and pick a bunch of mint!What awesome produce we get to work with!

Step Two:

Wait for your potatoes to cool, rice them and

blanch the mint. You can keep the stems as long as you run your knife through it enough so they don't get caught in the blender blades.

Step Three:

This laying hen at the farm is actually called "the bitch" for the terror she inflicts on who ever comes and steals her eggs. It takes one of her eggs per potato you use to get the right consistency. Harvesting an egg from her really teaches you appreciation for every egg that comes into the kitchen.

Blend the eggs and the mint.

Step Four:

Incorporate the puree into the potato and sift flour over the mixture.

The key to good gnocci is to not overwork the dough because the gluten will develop leaving you with a chewy dumpling. I tested this theory by kneading one dough a good amount and not kneading the other at all. The consensus was that the no-knead gnocci was the best.

Step Five:

Form little rolls of dough, cut them, and then roll them over a gnocci board or a fork.

Done!

Although, I didn't stop there. I made gnocchetti with the over-kneaded dough. We made gnocchetti the Frasca way- one of the guys recently staged there and picked up this trick.