Gnocchi Tuesday: An Amateur’s Adventure in Pasta Making
A few friends set out to make great pasta.
One morning I woke up and decided I wanted to learn how to make pasta. I went to my four roommates (some of my best friends) and proposed that we start making pasta together weekly. I was excited at the prospect and thankfully so were they. So we embarked on our pasta-making journey.
We decided that our first dive into the world of combining egg and flour to make beautiful pasta would start with gnocchi.
I’m not sure why we committed to making gnocchi as our first pasta. I’ve never particularly liked gnocchi and after making it many times, I have learned of its sleep-inducing properties.
After I eat a plate of my gnocchi I often have no other choice but to collapse onto the couch and begin to digest what feels like a thousand potatoes. Nevertheless, when I commit to something I just go for it.
The First Gnocchi Tuesday
Equipped with the pasta-making knowledge of a few YouTube videos and some cookbook recipes we went forth and attempted to make beautiful gnocchi. It was a humbling experience, to say the least.
Somehow the gnocchi was both dry and gummy at the same time. It wasn't robust enough to hold up to the rolling and cooking process and we were forced to sear it to add some structure. We served the- what felt like- seared dumplings with brown butter and thyme sauce and sat down to eat.
The five of us gathered around the table, anxiously waiting to taste what we had made.
We tried the pasta and sat confused. It didn’t taste good, but maybe that was how gnocchi was supposed to be, we didn't “gno”.
I continued the next few days pondering to myself. “Was that gnocchi good?” “Did we nail it on the first time?”.
That weekend I walked into the restaurant where I work and saw we had a box of russet potatoes. I was curious what we would be using them for. I went into the brightly lit pasta production room and asked our pasta maker.
He told me we are making gnocchi.
On this day, I saw how to properly make gnocchi. It was funny looking back and comparing our process to that of a masterful pasta maker. I watched each step of the process, from the rolling of the dough to the making of the sauce. It was served with a simple sauce al pomodoro (tomato sauce). It was light and fluffy, a faint resistance but not chewy; the perfect firmness, like biting into a small pillow. When my sous chef tasted it he said, “It’s a hard texture to describe and get right, but that right there, is it.”
So with the perfect gnocchi in mind, Gnocchi Tuesday was born.
We still have a ways to go in mastering pasta but we’ve come a long way in just six consecutive Gnocchi Tuesdays.
Cheers,
I’ll be posting our updates, progression, and recipes.
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