Gnocchi

This day was about making gnocchi for my group. I had never had gnocchi before today. Always wanted to, but never saw a restaurant here in Lincoln that served it. And it's definitely hard to find in stores. I think I've only seen it once where there is a vacuum sealed package of it. Anyways, it was actually pretty easy to do. We baked some potatoes, ran the insides of it through a ricer, added some flour and a couple other things, then rolled it out and cooked. It was really good. I made an asparagus pesto to go with it. Never made a pesto before that didn't contain basil, but this one was excellent. Toasted some pine nuts, blanched the asparagus, added oil, garlic, and parmesan and let the robot coupe do it's thing. Put it all together and added a parmesan crisp. Yes, this was a very good day for our group.

Good

So this class was a little bit all over the board. We covered everything from a New Orleans BBQ Shrimp with Maque Choux and Andouille Corn Pudding to a squash curry to spaghetti squash with spinach and a french lentil stew. My group was directly responsible for a chickpea, eggplant and tomato tart, falafels, and pita bread. Good thing that we did a test run of the falafel as it completely disintegrated when put in the fryer. Turns out their was no flour in the recipe to bind it together. We quickly remedied that and it turned out great. The pita bread was a good experience as I used the tandoori oven for the first time. It is rather hot and I am amazed at when I see shows on t.v that shows guys in India and such that just reach into those darn things. I ended up doing the tart as well. It was my first time working with phyllo. What a pain in the ass. It dried out a little too much(it was crumbly even when I got it). Maybe a little more oil on it next time will help out. The tart itself might not have looked the greatest, but it was nice when Chef tasted it, did a little bit of a double take, and stated, "That's actually really good"! All in all, it was a good class and my group is coming along really well in terms of working together.