Gnocchi Sunday

The post-MCAT life is good. There are sunshine, friends, happiness, and in my case, a lot of gnocchi. If I try really hard to forget about the whole not-getting-your-score-back-in-a-whole-month thing I can even manage to forget that this thing even happened in the first place.

I've been making a long list of things I want to do after my test, now that five extra hours just opened up each day. So the day after my test, I hosted a gnocchi party.



The philosophy behind gnocchi, and many fresh pastas, is to let the flavor of the starchy good shine through a simple sauce. This also makes sense given the labor intensity of making the gnocchi. As the nine of us crowded around my small kitchen table to grate the baked potatoes, add the other ingredients, knead and shape the dough, Jimmy's simple but delicious three-ingredient tomato sauce was simmering on the stove, requiring very little attention. For the dough, I based the recipe mostly off of this one, with a few changes, and also heavily referenced this slide show for visual instructions.



We made russet potato gnocchi with tomato sauce and sweet potato gnocchi with a brown butter and sage sauce. Personally, I haven't been the biggest fan of sage up to this point but after having it crisped and in browned, salted Kerrygold butter, I'm a convert. (But then again, what doesn't taste good fried in butter? This merits further exploration) The salty, nutty brown butter and crispy fried sage work perfectly with the mildly sweet and doughy sweet potato dough.

If you've only been eating ready-made gnocchi up to this point, I highly recommend that you gather a few friends, tell them to wash their hands, and dig into a pile of potato + flour. Even if the shapes don't come out quite right (like in the picture below), the texture of freshly-made gnocchi is pretty unbelievable.