So today begins a 12 month journey with 52 dishes ahead. For my first dish it would be safe to say I have started easy. No complicated meat dish with long instructions, just a simple Potato Gnocci with Tomato Sauce, or as the Italians would say Gnocci Salsa Di Pomodoro. This consisted of two parts, the Gnocci and the sauce.
The sauce was pretty simple, tinned italian tomatoes simmering for 45 mins with Garlic and salt, and after it is cooled you add Olive Oil and Basil. The Difficult part was the Gnocci. I was able to outsource the peeling of the Potatoes, which in itself constituted a win, then you steam them (not boil) to make them light and fluffy. Once the Potatoes are tender they are mashed with flour and a lightly beaten egg and then boiled a handful at a time. All sounds so easy doesn't it... well in theory it was simple, except my potato mash was lumpy and I was very edgy about the amount of flour to mash ratio as too much flour and they are hard and too little they would fall apart when cooked. I also did not expect that only doing a small number of gnocci pieces at a time would take so long, but we were hungry and this would need more peices and more time. The Gnocci really would have been served as starter in Italy so I suppose if I had done a starter size then it would be quite quick.
The Result:
I was reliably informed that the dish was very good, this leaves room for improvement. My own critique would be that the size and shape of the Gnocci was difficult to maintain and although hidden by the sauce would be an area for improvement and also as it took so long to do the serving tempertaure was a bit cool. Overall though for taste it was pretty good. I added Parmesan and fresh cut chilli to mine and that really defintely added it a bit more fun.
All in all a safe start, but a succesful one.
Cheers
J
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