This week's selection is a celebration of creamy, rich dairy. Dorie likens this dish to mac and cheese: hearty comfort food. Don't be fooled by the word "gnocchi" in the title; these little dumplings are made of cream puff dough.
I couldn't wrap my head around pate a choux as pasta--I think of it more as pastry. It is the dough used for eclairs, cream puffs, and delicious gougeres. In this case the choux dough is poached in water, much like gnocchi, and afterwards are baked in bechamel and (in my case) Comte and Emmental.
I messed up on the bechamel sauce--I thought I overcooked it, but now I wonder if my proportions were off. The sauce cooled to a thick blob, which today looked like a nice chunk of ricotta. I added a bit more milk over low heat and stirred and stirred. Eventually what I got was a thick, and yet creamy, white sauce. Pourable!
Dorie says this dish isn't any good as leftovers, so I decided to freeze the majority of the "gnocchi" and made a smaller portion. It was perfect this evening after a long, cold, rainy day.
Your dish looks so warm, gooey and cheesey! I wish I could have a bowl right now!
ReplyDeleteI thought the proportions were off as well on the bechamel.. but I been making this sauce for so long (my first sauce taught to me by my grandmother) that I was able to see it and compensate....
ReplyDeleteMy sauce was a blob at first, too. Your gnocchi are beautiful!
ReplyDeleteYep, agree...the sauce was off...added more milk and rescued it. Love your cute gnocchi!
ReplyDeleteI like the shape of your gnocchi. Did you pipe them? The sauce definitely needed a little extra milk/ cream - if I had been using any common sense, I would have made some up front adjustments and saved my self some of the frustration. Live and learn, right?
ReplyDeleteI agree…proportions on white sauce were definitely off. Usually a white sauce calls for almost equal amounts of butter and flour. I also had to thin this sauce. Your gnocchi look great, so uniform! Much better looking than mine.
ReplyDeleteMouth-watering ... simply mouth-watering. Your photos are wonderful. I'll use your tip next time to make a small portion. As soon as I realized the boys wouldn't eat it, I was devastated ... so much of mine went to waste.
ReplyDeleteI echo others--how did you get your gnocchi to look so pretty and uniform? Mine was delicious, but neither pretty nor uniform.
ReplyDeleteFantastic photos! I'm also wondering about your technique for shaping the gnocchi - they look perfect.
ReplyDeleteJust popped by again to say that I've put you on my list for the Stylish Blogger Award over on my blog. Feel free to participate as much or as little as you like. Just want to spread some appreciation around to bloggers I enjoy.
ReplyDeleteEverybody, I piped out the gnocchi...the sticky dough was driving me crazy.
ReplyDeleteOnewetfoot, thanks for the award! You are very kind. This is a good kick in the butt to keep posting over here...I forget about it sometimes in favor of the cakeblog but I will do better!