What Are You Tasting?

Flavor: Flat
Prep Time: 20 mins
Add to rotation?: No

I set out to create a three course meal for my family while testing out The Silver Spoon. My appetizer and first course of choice was the Ricotta and Spinach Gnocchi from page 264. (you can see part of the gnocchis in the picture on the left) The directions were easy and straightforward for a better than average cook. The Silver Spoon does have its drawbacks as it assumes the reader will know basic to slightly advance cooking techniques. The spinach Gnocchi recipe had only 5 ingredients and didn't pose much of a challenge in creating it. Since I was cooking this as an appetizer I chose to half all of the ingredients without any concerns to the finished dish. The only difficultly came in when it was time to cook the gnocchi in a boiling water bath. The gnocchis are a mixture of spinach, ricotta cheese, Parmesan cheese and an egg yolk. The directions state to simply drop the gnocchi in to the large pan of boiling salted water. I tested out two of my newly formed gnocchis, which were shredded down from a golf ball to hazelnut in size by the turbulent water bath. After loosing two like this, I changed techniques by lowering each gnoochi on a slotted spoon for a minute. Once cooked, I would lifted the spoon up, carefully slide the cooked gnocchi off the spoon and replaced it with an uncooked one. With only a dozen or so, this only took a few minutes to do. Had I been a novice cook it was easy to see how one could of had a pot full of waterly spinach soup. In the end, I dressed the gnocchis as directed with melted butter and shaved Parmesan cheese. My family and I both felt that the gnocchi while a good first course were flat in the flavor department. Perhaps, I would make one change and add a few fine shaves of nutmeg to each gnocchi.

What are you tasting?
Edna