Made a super simple Gnocchi dish today. Maybe someone would enjoy it.
Melt butter in a pan with a bit of olive oil. Add garlic, a nice amount of Anchovy filets, stir till they kinda melt in the butter. I added some green beans, chili flakes, ground pepper and lemon juice (but I think snow peas would be much better here if I had any).
One bag of cooked DeCecco Potato Gnocchi (make your own if you’re good at the cooking, I am not). Add to pan with some of the cooking water. Added another knob of butter. Cook on high heat so the Gnocchi gets a bit of a crisp exterior.
Served with a basic Arugula salad to cut the richness.
10 mins from start to finish. Barely any prep needed.
I tell you what, that looks tasty. Fried rice is supposed to be made with leftover rice, why not throw in your extra hot dog or whatever you have lying about in the fridge? A hot dog is entirely in keeping with the spirit of the dish.
I’ve taken one class as part of a team building exercise with my coworkers which is actually where I learned the technique I now use for the basis of that sauce, but mostly it’s internet recipes and a few books with an eye towards those that talk about the techniques and science behind it so you learn the whys instead of just copying recipes*. The fish is just this:
The technique outlined there works for basically any skin-on fish filet, so you can just use what’s on hand and looks good.
The salad is a recipe we got from a favorite French restaurant of ours that’s emailing out some recipes to try as a way to try to keep themselves relevant and encourage people to buy gift cards in these trying times. The recipe is basically just blanched asparagus in a basic homemade vinaigrette (we used our own that we always have on hand rather than making their exact one) with a few adornments, only one of which is cooked. But, with their plating ideas (easily my weakest aspect as a cook), it looks super awesome.
The buerre blanc sauce isn’t formally one of the 5 mother sauces, but it should probably be added to the list along with a basic pan sauce, because it’s very much like them in that it is good but not all that exciting on its own, but with one or two super flexible additions (usually fresh herbs, those can be whatever you have on hand) it’s amazing. It’s made by boiling some shallot, several whole black peppercorns, some sort of acid (traditionally wine vinegar but lemon or lime juice work also) and optionally some fresh herbs until the liquid is getting somewhat syrupy. Strain the liquid into the double boiler, and then gradually whisk in ~1 stick of butter. Season with salt**, a dash of cayenne pepper or hot sauce, and optionally add some more of the same fresh herbs. The thing I learned about this sauce from the cooking class is straining the liquid into the double boiler. A lot of internet recipes have you adding the butter in the same pan, which is usually too hot, which in turn will cause the sauce to separate. To prevent this, most of them include the crutch of using heavy cream to help hold the sauce together. In the double boiler, you don’t have to have the cream.
*Serious Eats is a really good website for this, as is Kenji’s The Food Lab cookbook. Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat is also pretty good, but it wasn’t quite as deep into the whys as I had hoped. America’s Test Kitchen is pretty good, too.
**One little quip I read that had a pretty big impact on my cooking was what was almost a throwaway line in an article on David Chang. In the interview with him, one of the things he said was, in effect, the right level of saltiness in a dish is where you’re not sure if it’s too salty or not salty enough. A lot of people add salt to whatever it is, and then it tastes better, so they conclude they are done. But if at the same time you’re sure it’s not too salty, then you should add a little more. This applies only to food you’re about to put on the table. Obviously don’t salt this aggressively too early, as then you’ll have oversalted when water evaporates, and don’t salt stocks and such.
America’s Test Kitchen’s big binders of recipes had some good technique stuff in the front. A lot of cooking is having someplace that will tell you what the ingredients are supposed to be and then as you make it you figure out what you like and don’t like.
As opposed to Baking where the result is much more attached to getting the chemistry right which means following the recipe very closely.
