On Friday while waiting on W, I watched Iron Chef America. I love Iron Chef; however, I was sad to find out that the Chairman’s nephew is not actually his nephew (hint: he’s an actor). And apparently the chefs have some time to figure out what they are going to make – it’s not all on the fly.
Regardless, it’s a fun show. And oh how I love the cheese battles. Marc Forgione v. Nicholas Cantrel in a Gruyère death match… I was very impressed by Nicholas Cantrel. Seriously, everything he did was so French it hurt! He even wrapped bananas in ham and covered them with béchamel and crème fraîche then baked them. Really? And he won.
Chef Cantrel also made Parisian gnocchi, which I’ve never seen before. His had truffles and were sitting in a truffle sauce. I decided to make a version of them last night. Here goes:
I used a recipe that I found on food.com. Not nearly as fancy as Chef Cantrel’s. Since truffles are not sold anywhere in this town (gah), I used some button mushrooms, finely chopped and sautéed before I started the dough.
Then I started the dough, after grating some parmesan. I didn’t use gruyère. I love it, but it’s just crazy expensive compared to parmesan.
After you beat the dough on the stove and dry it out a little, let it rest in a bowl. It’s super sticky and not easy to work with. At this point, I thought I messed it up completely.
After it rests, the recipe says to beat the dough with one egg in a bowl. This was incredibly hard to do with just a spoon. When it came time to combine the cheese and additional two eggs, I used a hand mixer.
Then I added the mushrooms and put it all in a plastic bag.
I cut a 3/4″ hole in the corner of the plastic bag in order to squeeze the dough out in little 1″ tubes (cut them with a small sharp knife as they come out). I went through four of them trying to get the dough to come out like toothpaste into simmering water. Must buy a pastry bag and some tips! Chef Cantrel had one…
These look insanely misshapen, mainly due to the plastic bag malfunctions. After they float to the top, get them out of the hot water and into ice water. Then let dry on paper towels and move to a greased Pyrex and sprinkle with more parmesan.
Bake for about 25 or 30 minutes. They came out so tasty! I do think they need some sort of sauce. Gotta come up with that later since I’ll definitely make them again.
alta billie 