Do you ever know something without really knowing something? Like the fact that you can get your parking validated at Nordstrom’s at The Grove in L.A. Until you need your parking validated, you don’t really let that thought surface.
Well last night I was in my kitchen at 7:30 P.M., feeling peckish, and without a box of pasta to boil up. I scrounged through my drawers and my freezer and stumbled upon a bag of frozen gnocchi. The normal thought would be: “Let’s boil these little potato dumplings and toss ’em with butter and cheese.”
That’s when that something that I knew without really knowing appeared on the screen in my brain: “Fry ’em!” it said.
“Fry ’em?” I replied in my brain (not out loud).
After studying a few techniques online, I took some leftover vegetables from a roast chicken dinner from last week — Delicata squash, onions, turnips, etc. — and warmed them up in my non-stick skillet.
(Those are cranberries in there too!)
I scraped all of that into a bowl, once it was warm, then I wiped out the skillet. Then I added a glug of olive oil and a layer of frozen gnocchi direct from the freezer bag.
I covered it with a lid (actually, a cookie sheet) and let sit undisturbed for three to four minutes. When I lifted the sheet, and tossed the gnocchi over, I saw what you see at the top of this post: the crispiest, most golden brown gnocchi.
To that, I added a tablespoon or two of butter.
I seasoned with salt and tossed all around until the butter started to brown and the gnocchi was cooked through.
Then I added all of the vegetables back:
Tossed a few times in the air and seasoned with a little more salt, I scraped this all into a bowl and beheld one of the most gorgeous dinners I’ve made in a while.
People: this dinner was incredible. Like a total game-changer. Like I’m going to buy frozen gnocchi for the rest of my life so I can keep on doing this.
Unlike regular boiled gnocchi, this gnocchi was almost like a French fry on the outside: it had that crackly, salty, crispness you long for in a fried potato. But then the inside of was pillowy and light. (I used Raffetto’s brand, which came from my CSA.) So now the thing that I knew that I didn’t really know is something that I really, really know. And lucky for you, you know it now too!
Leave a Reply