Sunday Supper-Pot Roast and Gnocchi

A Special Sunday Supper in Memory of

Our Tree

Pot Roast with Potato Gnocchi

*

Grated Zuchini with Parmesan

*

Brocollini with Olive Oil

*

Lemon Meringue Pudding

The majestic, two hundred year old tree that grew in our front yard was the focal point of our home.  As you drove in our driveway, the beauty of that tree made our home welcoming and elegant.  It was like losing an old friend to see our dear tree toppled over as we came home from our morning walk.  He caused no harm to our home, yard or fence as his roots gave way in the saturated soil.  He will keep our home warm for many years to come.  We will sorely miss him.

As I looked at our tree on Sunday morning, the sky still full of rain, I knew that making and cooking gnocchi was what I needed to do.  That and filling the house with the smell of a pot roast slowly simmering on the stove.  It was early Sunday morning and the kitchen was calling me.

I have made many gnocchi over the years; not all have been good.  I have read many recipes, done the trial and error thing like most of us do and eventually I learned a lot about gnocchi.  In my opinion, the trick is to use the least amount of flour you can get away with, just enough to hold them together.  It is a difficult balance, too much flour and you end the evening with a lead stomach, too little and they fall apart.  Even if you follow the recipe to a tee, you can have gnocchi that are not right.  Each potato's water content is different and may need a little more or less flour than the recipe suggests.  Two other important tips: bake your potatoes instead of boiling and after you rice them, put your dough together while they are still warm. The amount of egg is still somewhat of a mystery to me but I use a scant large egg (maybe you would call that a medium egg but I never buy medium eggs) to two pounds of peeled, riced potatoes.  My gnocchi last night were unbelievable, if I do say so myself.

I got inspiration for my pot roast by going on a few of my favorite blogs and found an Italian Pot Roast on Simply Recipes that caught my interest.  The cook learned to make this dish from a local Italian chef in her home town, Bibba Caggiano.  The braise was quite traditional and called for onions, carrots, celery, tomatoes and wine.  I added pancetta and replaced two thirds of the wine for veal stock and strained most of the vegetables out of my sauce.  The braise cooked for 3 hours and most of the flavor of the vegetables were gone but I liked the look of some carrots and tomatoes in my sauce so I cherry picked a few to place back in the broth after I reduced it.  The result was wonderful and I am grateful for my blog so I can record this gem.  How many times have I tried to recreate a recipe and my husband says, "What did you do different this time?", and he does not mean it in a good way.

I served it with a simple broccolini and a zucchini dish that is wonderful with a tomato-based sauce.  For dessert I wanted something light (in case my gnocchi were not) so I made a lemon meringue pudding.  Easy and can be made with staple ingredients in your kitchen.  A wonderful go to dessert when you are not in the mood to go back to the grocery store.  

I hope you like my Sunday Supper recipes as much as we did.

Pot Roast, Italian Style My Way

Pot Roast, Italian Style

The key to a perfect pot roast is to cook the meat until it is meltingly tender but not so much that it looses its flavor.  To accomplish this, keep your heat as low as possible and begin checking the meat at two hours.  You can use a boneless chuck roast but I think the bone adds body and flavor to the sauce.  Cooking dishes like this one makes me like winter.

• 
  
  1 4-5 pound bone in chuck roast
• 
  
  salt
• 
  
  2 tablespoons salt
• 
  
  4 ounces pancetta, chopped
• 
  
  1 large red onion, chopped
• 
  
  2 garlic cloves, minced
• 
  
  1 cup chopped celery
• 
  
  1 cup chopped carrots
• 
  
  1 14-ounce can stewed tomatoes, drained and tomatoes chopped
• 
  
  1 28-ounce can whole tomatoes, drained and tomatoes chopped
• 
  
  3 sprigs thyme
• 
  
  1 bay leaf
• 
  
  1 1/2 cups red wine
• 
  
  3 cups veal stock
• 
  
  2 tablespoons butter, softened
• 
  
  2 tablespoons flour
• 
  
  salt to taste

Trim off excess fat from the chuck roast and season with salt.  Let sit at room temperature for one hour, up to two.  Heat a large saute pan over medium high heat, add the oil and sear the meat on one side until well brown.  With two tongs or a large spatula, turn over and brown the other side well.  Place meat in a large dutch oven and set aside.

Keep at least 2-3 tablespoons of fat in the pan and add the pancetta and slowly cook to render the fat and ultimately begin to brown the bacon, about 5 minutes.  Add the onions and cook for 2 minutes over medium heat.  Add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds before adding the celery and carrots; cook for two more minutes.  Add both tomatoes, the thyme and bay leaf and simmer for an additional minute.  Add the vegetable mixture to the chuck roast.  Deglaze the pan with the wine and reduce for three minutes.  Add the veal stock, bring to a boil and reduce for an additional three minutes.  Add the wine/stock mixture to the chuck roast and bring the mixture to a boil.  Lower the heat and place a parchment lid over the vegetables and meat; cover and simmer, checking periodically for three hours, or until completely tender.

When the meat is tender, turn the heat off and let the roast rest in the sauce for half an hour. Remove the meat to a bowl or large plate and set aside while you finish the sauce. Strain all of the vegetables from the sauce; set aside. Defat the sauce by pouring the broth into a fat separator, pour the broth into a saucepan. 

Reduce the sauce until full of flavor and begins to thicken.  If the sauce is not thick enough and the flavor is perfect, mix the two tablespoons of butter with the flour and add the mixture, a few teaspoons at at time into the boiling sauce and whisk.  Let simmer for a few minutes before adding more.  It will take the flour a bit of time to thicken the sauce.  You may not need all of the butter/flour mixture, use just enough to thicken the sauce to coat the back of a spoon.  You can add a few of the vegetables mixture back into the sauce to create some texture. Use a light hand, too many vegetables will reduce the flavor of the sauce.

 Now it is time to prepare the meat.  I remove the bones, sinew and fat from the meat before I reheat and slice it.  As you can see the raw meat is broken down into sections divided by the bone, fat and sinew.  Once the meat is cooked I remove all of that to leave only the good pieces of meat.  Once you slice the meat your guests will not have to deal with the inedible parts.  This is not a necessary step but a nice one and really quite satisfying to do.  I then reheat the sections in the sauce and once hot, I remove and slice them into serving pieces.  You could cook the roast up to placing the sections into the sauce and refrigerate for a few hours up to a few days.  As with any braise, the flavor only gets better as the meat sits with the sauce.  Yet, I served this up right after I cook it last Sunday and I could not imagine it any better.

I hope you try and enjoy this wonderful Sunday Supper entree, my family sure did.

Gnocchi Made Easy

Gnocchi

I used to think gnocchi were time consuming, but no longer.  Once you get the technique down they can be made for a family of four in under an hour.  The key is to add as little flour as you can to the gnocchi and boil one to see if it holds up.  It is easier to add a bit more flour than to bake another potato if you have added too much.  I cook the gnocchi ahead of time then either fry them before they get sauced  or reheat them directly in the sauce.  This makes for less last minute work.

• 2 1/4 pound russet potatoes
• 1 cup all-purpose flour, about
• 1 medium egg or a scant large egg
• 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Bake the potatoes until they can be pierced easily with a knife, around 50 minutes depending on the size of the potato.  Peel them while they are still hot (I use gloves) and pass them through a food mill or ricer onto a clean pasta board or counter.

Bring about 6 quarts of water to a boil.  Set up an ice bath with 6 cups of water and ice nearby.

Quickly make a well in the center of your warm potatoes and cover the potatoes with about 2/3 to 3/4 cup of your flour.  Sprinkle on the salt.  Mix your egg and add all of the medium egg or about 3/4 of the large egg in the center of potatoes.  Like you are making pasta, begin bringing the potatoes and flour into your egg with a fork.  Once the egg is mixed in, bring the dough together with your hands until a ball is formed.  Knead the dough gently for at least 4 minutes or until the ball is dry to touch.  I then test the dough to see if it has enough flour.  I take a pinch of dough, shape it into a mini gnocchi and throw it in the water for one minute.  If the gnocchi breaks up in the water, I would add 1/4 cup more flour.  If the mouth feel is too soft I would add a few more tablespoons, knead for a minute and test again.

Once you have your dough right, break off about 1/5 of the dough and roll into a rope 3/4 of an inch in diameter and cut the rope into 1-inch pieces.  I have found rolling the dough into a rope not as easy as it sounds.  Two problems happen, the dough does not roll but gets a fat edge like a block or is completely uneven like a snake that just ate a mouse.  Since a perfect dough is still somewhat sticky, I flour the board and my dough and if you are rolling your dough on a slick counter, it can slip and create a flat edge.  If this happens, pat your back, your dough is the right consistency and what you need is a rough surface (to avoid the slipping). This rough surface can be created from the gnocchi dough that was left on the counter as you kneaded (look below the dough in my picture) or from a rough cutting board.  Making an even rope takes practice but is not as much of a problem.  Just cut the fatter gnocchi into smaller pieces to keep each piece as even as you can for even cooking.  Do not worry about having your gnocchi perfect, a rustic gnocchi equals homemade.  That being said, as you gently roll your gnocchi, start from the center and and move your hands outward.  If you have a pregnant rope, stretch a bit as you roll.  Always apply light pressure to avoid the block look.  I hope that helps!

I like to cut the the rope at an angle to create a gnocchi that has two points and a fatter body but I think a straight cut is more traditional.  I then take a fork and roll the gnocchi to get some fork marks and create a little pocket to grab your sauce.

After I finish cutting and marking my rope of gnocchi, I cook it right away in the water that I have boiling.  First I salt my water like the ocean tastes, fill up my flat strainer/skimmer with the gnocchi (see picture below) and drop them in the boiling water and boil them for at least one minute or until they rise to the surface.  Mine usually rise to the surface before one minute but continue to cook them for one minute.

After the gnocchi have cooked for at least one minute, use a separate skimmer to take them out of the water and drop them in the ice water.  I have one dry skimmer to drop the gnocchi in the water and one wet one to take them out.  I then repeat the process until I am done.  Once finished with all of the dough, drain and dry the gnocchi carefully, place in a bowl, pour about 2 tablespoons of olive oil over the dumplings and toss lightly with your hand.  If you have made a light gnocchi they can be tender and could break up if you are rough with them.  Place them in the refrigerator until you are ready to use them.  They can easily be made the day before and I have held them for a few days with not much difference in taste.

You can reheat your gnocchi directly in the sauce of your choice, doing your best not to over crowd them.  I like to heat my sauce in a large saute pan then add the gnocchi in one layer and once hot, pour them directly into my serving dish.  Do not over cook them or they could turn to mush. If you have more gnocchi to cook, I would repeat the process, keeping the first batch warm in a warm oven.  I also like to fry the gnocchi to get a bit of a brown crunch on the soft dumpling.  While the taste of a crunchy gnocchi is pretty unbelievable, frying a soft bit of potato can be difficult.  I have had my beautiful gnocchi turn into a soft glob after a few minutes in the butter/oil.  The less flour you use for your gnocchi, the better they taste but the harder they are to fry.  I would test a few to see how your gnocchi handle the heat. If they turn to mush, reheat gently in the sauce. To brown mine, I heated a tablespoon of olive oil then added a tablespoon of butter.  I place the gnocchi in a single layer, gave them a shake and let them brown on one side.  Seeing they were too soft to turn with a spatula, I flipped them in the pan and gave the ones that obediently turned over for me a sear on the other side, while my bad gnocchi got a single side sear.  All in all, they were wonderful!  Please let me know if you have better luck!

Grated Zucchini with Shaved Parmesan

Zucchini with Parmesan

I was taught this recipe years ago by a San Franciscan chef.  A friend of mine bought this cooking class at a school auction and I cook a number of the recipes he taught us all the time.  Too bad I forgot who he was, I would love to thank him.  I could eat this dish as an entree with a bit of tomato sauce.  This recipe makes me plant more zucchini in my yard.

Serves 6

• 
  
  3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 
  
  4 zucchini, grate in a food processor creating a thick long shread
• 
  
  1 cup shaved parmesan cheese, shaved with a grater

Heat a saute pan over high heat for three minutes.  Turn off heat and add olive oil quickly.  Immediately add zucchini and with your hand (if you are brave) turn the zucchini in the pan until it is warmed.  Add the parmesan and again quickly stir to slightly melt the cheese.  The zucchini will be just warm but not hot enough to allow the zucchini to release its water.  If you feel it is not hot enough, turn the heat on quickly.  The beauty about this zucchini is its fresh taste.  Salt to taste and serve immediately. 

Broccolini with Olive Oil

Broccolini with Olive Oil

This is the standard way I cook many vegetables.  Blanched in copious amounts of heavily salted water, Thomas Keller style.  This is my husband's favorite.  Simple but good.

Serves 6

• 
  
  Two bunches broccolini, trimmed
• 
  
  Olive oil
• 
  
  Salt

Bring a large pot of water to a boil.  Add enough salt to taste like the sea.  Make a water bath with about 6 cups of water and 6 cups of ice.  Add the broccolini to the boiling water and cook until done, about three minutes.  Take one out, cut off a bit of the stem and check to see if it's cooked.  Pull the stems out of the water and plunge into the ice bath.

Once cooked, drain and dry well.  I sometimes place them into a salad spinner to spin the water out of the heads then dry completely in a tea towel.  Place them in a microwaveable dish and season with salt and olive oil.  Toss to distribute evenly.  Taste to check seasoning.  When ready to serve heat in your microwave oven for two minutes or until hot.  Easy peasy.

Lemon Meringue Pudding

Lemon Meringue Pudding

This old fashion dessert is comfort food of the highest order.  During baking this pudding separates, forming a custard-like sauce on the bottom and a spongecake meringue top layer.  If you have a couple lemons, some butter and eggs and a few extra minutes, you have dessert!  This recipe is from Gourmet's Best Desserts, from the editors of Gourmet, a magazine of our memories.  Last night we could not help adding some warmed blueberries to this dessert.  My husband heated them in a dry pan until they burst.

• 1/2 stick butter, softened
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar 
• 3 eggs separated 
• 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice 
• 1/3 cup flour 
• 1 tablespoon grated lemon zest
• 1/4 teaspoon salt plus a pinch 
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• pinch of cream of tartar
• 1/4 cup confectioners' sugar for garnish if desired

Butter the souffle dish and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl with a mixer cream together the butter and sugar until light.  Beat in the egg yolks, one at a time, beating  well after each addition.  Add the lemon juice, flour, lemon rind, and the 1/4 teaspoon salt and combine well.  Add the milk in a stream, and combine the mixture well.  In a bowl with the mixer beat the egg whites with the pinch of salt until frothy, add the cream of tartar, and beat until they hold stiff peaks.  Stir one fourth of the whites into the lemon mixture, fold in the remaining whites gently but thoroughly, and transfer the mixture to the souffle dish. 

Put the dish in a larger pan, add enough boiling water to the pan to reach halfway up the sides of the dish, and bake the dessert in the middle of the oven for 50 minutes, or until the pudding is puffed and the top is golden.  If desired sift the confectioners' sugar over the top.  Serve the dessert warm or chilled.

Luncheon on the Beach

A Special Menu to Celebrate a

Beautiful Day at the Beach

With Bloody Marys and Blinis

Ahi Tuna Tartar on Wonton Chips

*

Clam Chowder

First Course

Heirloom Tomato Tart with Nicoise Olive Tapenade and Fresh Mozzarella

on a Bed of Mixed Field Greens in a Basil Vinaigrette

Entree

Scrimp Scampi Risotto

Dessert

Chocolate Mousse Torte

Northern California beaches are spectacular in the fall.  With the inland heat cooling and the off shore winds warming the coast, our normal fog does not have a chance to make land fall.  I always have my annual "Day at the Beach" fundraising event during this time.  It is a true community effort; the parents from my youngest daughter's class help me prep cook, set up the tables, arrange the flowers and this year, take pictures.  I need a bit of that warm sand between my toes now to get me through this wonderfully rainy weather.  We need the rain so just a little peek at these pictures along with remembering the dishes that afternoon will carry me through the wet week!

To me the beach screams fish and a luncheon says light but since I do not do "light" well, let's say "lighter".  I started with a highly seasoned ahi tuna tartar (kind of like a Hawaiian poke in small dice) on a fried wonton wrapper to get the appetite going.  I love clam chowder at the beach, so served that in coffee cups with Bloody Marys; another great combo.  For the first course I did my kid's all time favorite salad from Thomas Keller's French Laundry Cookbook.  It is like tomatoes done two ways: one roasted and hot and placed on a pastry puff pizza and the others chilled and topped with a tapenade and greens dressed in a basil vinaigrette.  For the entree I made a plain risotto and spiced it up by adding my classic shrimp scampi with tomatoes at the end along with a dizzle of olive oil, the perfect marriage.  Since I was having 16 for lunch I served my chocolate mousse torte for dessert.  It is a classic mousse in a chocolate cookie crust and feeds a crowd.

I hope you enjoy a bit of my Indian summer in the depth of winter!