Last nights gastronomical sensation was Ricotta Gnocchi with tomato and eggplant sauce and a raspberry jam pudding. These dishes were very easy and quick to make. After the last dinner I made (see All Hands on Deck) I thought I should go a little easy on myself. The Gnocchi dish was suggested to me by a colleague at work, thank you Therese, this dish was delicious. This gnocchi was is the First Junior Masterchef cookbook.
To start preparing the gnocchi dish, start with the sauce. Place the contents of 2 tins of tomatoes and 2 cloves of garlic into a pan and bring to boil. Reduce heat and let simmer for 6 - 8 minutes or until liquid has reduced. Add a tbs of caster sugar and season with S&P. Add a handful of basil. Fry off a chopped eggplant till golden - drain excess fluid and add to tomatoes.
For the gnocchi, 500g of ricotta, 150g of peccorino or parmesan cheese, tsp of nutmeg, a lightly beaten egg and a 1/4cup of plain flour. Get your hands in there and mix up and combine. Now add another 1 and 3/4 cups of plain flour. Again get your hands in there and mix. Roll into 2 cm thick logs and chop into bite sized pieces. Add the gnocchi to boiling saucepan of water to cook - wait till floating and remove. Add cooked gnocchi to the sauce and serve.
The gnocchi was nice but we needed an extra kick so we added some chilli flakes.
For dessert Raspberry jam pudding. Put a layer of Raspberry jam into a 2 litre pie dish - i used a casserole dish . In a mixing bowl put 1 2/3cups plain flour, 3tsp baking powder, 350g caster sugar, 100g dessicated coconut, 3 eggs, 350 ml milk, vanilla extract, 150g melted butter. Mix this mixture till it has just combined then pour on top of raspberry jam. Bake for 45 min on 180 deg.
Serve with thin cream.
This was a very simple dessert that was tasty.
My scores for tonight's dinner 4 wooden spoons for the Gnocchi
and 4 wooden spoons for the Raspberry Jam pudding.
The gnocchi was so good. It was light, soft and cooked perfectly al dente! The eggplant and tomato sauce definitely needed the chilli kick, as the eggplant takes on the flavour of whatever it's in, so it was sweet tomato overload. This was just as good reheated the next day for lunch. 4.5/5 wooden spoons (yes I rated it higher than Andy did!)
ReplyDeleteThe pudding was sweet, sweet, sweet. It had a delicious crunchy top, from the coconut and sugar and I would have been happy with a bowl of that. With the raspberry jam on the bottom, it was very reminiscent of the coconut slice you get from the bakery. Very tasty. 4/5 wood spoons