Five Hungry Girls, a Garden full of fresh Herbs, Potatoes: Both Sweet & Regular, Tapioca Flour, Spinach, Cheese, Wine .. a rainy Friday evening... Just the right ingredients to start craving for comfort food..
With Two Brazilians, Two Swiss & One Indian, we have a variety to choose from. Samosas, Pakoras & Chai would be perfect -- but we're missing some basic ingredients here. Finally we settle on Gnocchi, Pan de Queso and Indian Dessert..
Gnocchi: These little potato dumplings are an essential part of the gift from the heavens that is Italian food. I've only had Gnocchi in Restaurants, so when Silvana offers to teach us how to roll our Gnocchi from scratch, i'm all in.. armed with all four limbs!
I soon realise, the reality of making gnocchi requires a kind of intuition to be developed. This is the kind of cooking that relies more on senses than on scales and measures. One needs to pay attention to the way things smell, look and feel.
Just the way I like to Cook. No wonder I've never quite warmed up to Baking.. too much precision & measurement.
So here we were ready to embrace uncertainty! The all important questions for the day range from: "To Egg or Not to Egg"? to "Perfect Flour-to-Potato Ratio" to "Knead or No-Need" to "Perfect Stickiness Index"..
Having rolled hundreds of Rotis, Paranthas, Puris, one would assume this would be a piece of cake.. na.. na.. Na.. NA .. NA... Unless you have an Italian grandmother at your elbow correcting your rolling technique (my Brazilian friend was quite good too! I should ask her if she has some Italian roots..), you will roll thousands of dumplings before you achieve the light and fluffy melt-in-your-mouth texture.
We take turns boiling the Gnocchi and making Sauces.. three different ones to accommodate our special dietary needs of: GlutenFree, DairyFree and Meat/Fish Free ... For the first time in Switzerland, I'm not the only one with special dietary needs!!
After two hours of chopping, rolling, kneading, boiling and baking, can't wait to dig into the comfort foods of the world - Gnocchi, Pan de Queso, Vermicelli Kheer and Amaretti!!
As a sweet potato gnocchi melts in my mouth, I contently let the Samosas and Masala Chai wait for another rainy day..
