Pops De Milk

It’s Saturday morning, I crack open my crusted eyes and push back the wave of nausea followed by the pulsating beat of a headache. This is what happens when you stay up all night getting loaded and playing Street Fighter IV and Trash Panic on the PS3. When I finally drag myself to the living room our friend, Gabo (aka Kitchen Drunkard) who stayed the night, is already up and playing Street Fighter. Where he gets the energy to play so soon I don’t know. After saying good morning and having a nice greasy breakfast of bacon and eggs, Jay, Gabo, and me continue to play some more games.

A while later our stomachs are rumbling again. Still feeling groggy, I am not in the mood to make anything but somehow Gabo gets both Jay and I excited about making gnocchi. Thankfully we have all the necessary ingredients and after a quick look online for a recipe, we get down to work.

First, we boil 3 lbs of potatoes until they’re soft and tender. We leave the skin on the potatoes for more flavour and once they’re cooked, we peel them. We let the potatoes cool down a wee bit before mashing them and then we add one egg and two cups of flour. We have to use loads of flour for dusting because the dough is super sticky. We separate the dough into four sections and then we roll each section into a long thick strip, which we cut into about 1 and 1/2 inch-sized pieces. Each piece is shaped by rolling it over the back of a fork, allowing a tiny pocket to form on one side while impressing the fork tines on the other side. They look like larva to me. Yum.

Once the gnocchi is shaped it goes into a pot of boiling water to cook for a few minutes. You know they’re ready when they start to float up. But keep an eye on them because they may stick to the bottom.

Gabo cooks up a sauce for the gnocchi with Classico pesto, mild blue cheese and bacon. The aroma is amazing and it tastes like soft chewy potatoes in delicious pesto and cheese sauce. This recipe makes enough for plenty of leftovers which is fine by me because I cannot wait to have some more!

Gnocchi dough rolled out and ready to be cut.

Jay cutting the dough into 1 and 1/2 inch pieces (approx)

Gabo shaping the dough into gnocchi.

Amazing gnocchi!