Potato Gnocchi: Results!

Oh what good intentions we had! The entire process went as well as we could hope. At every step, I was impressed that I hadn't screwed it up thus far. The dough was relatively simple to make, and came together quite well. But this is also where we really got hung up: that line about making sure the dough doesn't stick to your hands...We used the full two cups of flour and then kept adding, a dash at a time, until it got a little dryer. Oh and the other unfortunate part - we couldn't find any fresh thyme at the store (make that any fresh herb...) so we were forced to used dry thyme. We rolled, cut and fork pressed (so hard to make it look decent!) our cute little dumplings and cooked as directed.

The result? Well, as J stated that night - they were a bit more like tightly rolled sleeping bags than pillows. And that dry thyme turned out to be a big mistake; while the flavor was great the texture of a dry herb that hasn't had enough cooking time to soften, was an unwelcome surprise. Looks like we've got more work to do.

On a positive note - we both loved the sauce. And that's no small thing considering J's aversion to blue cheese! It's especially nice that it's so simple to make. I'm not sure it would work as well with other pastas, as the intensity requires a denser medium, but I'd like to find something else I can smother with this stuff.

We served the gnocchi with a simple arugula and Parmesan salad with lemon vinaigrette, which worked really well to cut the creaminess of the pasta dish.

The NY Times just reviewed a new book that's just been published in English (4 years ago in Italian), called 'The Encyclopedia of Pasta'. It gives a basic recipe for the entire catalog of Italian pasta and a history. Sounds pretty cool.