Pasta & Noodles

Gnocchi in Friuli are made with the same potato-and-flour dough as the round, ridged gnocchi made elsewhere in Italy, the kind we are most familiar with. But Friuli-style gnocchi have a couple of tempting distinctions. First, you’ll find that their shape is different—they are smooth, slender cylinders that are actually faster and easier to form than round gnocchi. This shape gives you an option in finishing the gnocchi: you can boil, drain, and dress them just as they come out of the cooking pot, or, after they’re boiled and drained, you can gently fry them in butter until golden and crisp on the outside—and then dress them—having gained another layer of flavor and texture. Second—and unique to gnocchi and other pastas in Friuli—is the dressing of melted butter, sugar, cinnamon, and smoked dried ricotta. This melding of sweet, salty, spicy, and smoky may seem exotic at first but will quickly captivate you. Milk products like ricotta are frequently preserved by smoking in Friuli, and smoked ricotta (drier than fresh) is a common household product. It is available here now, but if you can’t find it, use ricotta salata as a good alternative (see Sources, page 340). And if you have a smoker, you can coldsmoke the ricotta salata, for a flavor closer to what is enjoyed in Friuli. You can dress gnocchi friulani with other sauces—basil pesto, tomato—or serve with another regional dish like Beef Goulash, page 58.

Gnocchi made with gries (farina) were a favorite of mine as a child—perhaps because they were often cooked for holiday dinners. And I have especially fond memories of the gnocchi di gries made by my great-aunt Nina while we lived with her in Trieste, before we left for the United States. And though Zia Nina is gone, here is the way my mother, Erminia Matticchio, prepares them for our family today. The little gnocchetti are delicious and simple to make. Because they cook in broth, and take on the flavor, homemade broth is always best, and together they make a festive and satisfying soup course. The gnocchi are a favorite soup garnish for children, and a good dish for infants starting to eat solid food. To make a larger amount of gnocchetti, simply multiply the recipe. They keep well, so you can make a big batch, drain them after cooking, and pack in ziplock freezer bags; refrigerate or freeze. Reheat in boiling broth (if frozen, defrost them first).

Sweet gnocchi are among my favorite childhood food memories. These were never dessert but a main course for the children: if the adults were to have gnocchi with venison guazzetto or other game sauce, some of the dough would be specially prepared just for us kids, stuffed with prunes or marmalade (or both) in winter, or with fresh ripe plums in late summer. I loved them all and remember that if we had three or four we were full until the next meal. I make these prune and plum-jam gnocchi for my grandchildren today, but now the adults want them too. And though I still consider them a main dish, on occasion I do serve them for dessert. They also make a wonderful accompaniment to roast duck or goose—and a lovely breakfast! To make sure these have a sweet, crunchy crumb coating, drop the cooked gnocchi into the bread-crumb mixture while they are still wet from the cooking pot. If you let them dry, the crumb topping will have difficulty adhering.

Offelle are just like ravioli, but what encloses the filling is potato dough rather than pasta dough, which lends a special soft texture. Here’s how I coordinate the elements of this recipe so everything comes together perfectly. First I cook and rice the potatoes for the dough (as in the preceding recipe). While they’re cooling, I make the sausage-spinach filling and let it cool. Then I mix the dough, roll it out, and stuff it to form plump offelle.

Use this versatile dough to make small gnocchi with the familiar ridged shape, or in the following recipes for stuffed offelle and prune gnocchi. This same dough can also be formed into long gnocchi, page 80, cooked and dressed Friuli style with brown butter, smoked ricotta, cinnamon, and sugar. With all dishes using potato dough, keep several time factors in mind to get the best results. First, allow the cooked potatoes to air-dry thoroughly before you mix the dough—2 hours or even longer if possible. The drier the potatoes, the lighter the dough will be when cooked. Second, because potato dough is best when freshly mixed and cannot sit around, plan to shape the dough into gnocchi and cook them right away (or freeze them). If you are making stuffed gnocchi or offelle, have your filling ingredients ready when you mix the dough.

Using fresh ricotta as the base for gnocchi creates pasta of incredible delicacy with a richness that stands up well to bold sauces such as the short rib ragu. Think of forming the gnocchi as a meditation, enjoying the process and the feel of the dough under your fingers. This is a great basic meat sauce that’s a staple at Tavolàta. Using short ribs instead of ground chuck makes for better depth of flavor and richness. You can either grind the meat yourself if you have a grinder or an attachment for your mixer, or ask your butcher to grind it for you. This is a fairly thick ragu that goes especially well with ricotta gnocchi or freshly made pappardelle.

If you are the kind of person who prefers a croque madame to a croque monsieur, the addition of the fried egg gilding the lily in a truly spectacular way, then this is the dish for you. Fresh pillows of gnocchi topped with earthy morels makes for a sublime dish all on its own. Top each dish with a fried duck egg, the soft yolk oozing under your fork . . . need I go on?

If you think you don’t like potato gnocchi, you’ve probably been subjected to some heavy, leaden mistakes. The good news is that it’s relatively easy to make your own, and following a few rules produces light, fluffy dumplings every time. First, it’s essential to use russet (baking) potatoes, and to bake them with their skins on to ensure they don’t soak up excess water from boiling and turn soggy. Peel the potatoes as soon as you can handle them, and mix the dough gently while the potatoes are still warm. If you’re nervous about the consistency of your dough, simply blanch a test gnocchi in boiling water before forming and shaping them. If it falls apart in the water, you need to add a little more flour to the dough.

In 1995, I was lucky enough to be invited as a guest chef at the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok. I brought my sous chef and pastry chef with me, and for two weeks we toured the temples and markets of the city, seeing (and eating) many unusual and beautiful things. I vividly remember the profusion of flowers and the tasty and sometimes strange street food (such as the edible insect cart, which we avoided), and the gradual change from barely tolerating hot chiles to actually craving them on a daily basis. When I returned, my sous chef, Ronald Carr, helped me develop this dish to showcase the new flavors that I’d fallen for. This substantial salad could be served for lunch, dinner, or as a first course before something light, such as grilled fish. To lighten up the salad, you can add an extra handful of shredded cabbage or even more of the crispy noodles (keep in mind that the salad will be a bit drier if you do this). Small or medium shrimp work just fine in this recipe, and they’re less expensive than larger varieties.

This salad was a customer favorite at Spice Inc. It’s best with buckwheat noodles, but it can also be made with somen (wheat) noodles or even spaghetti. This is a great salad to eat all summer long.

The combination of anchovy paste and soy sauce is a good substitution for Asian fish sauce, which is used to flavor many Thai dishes. If you have fish sauce on hand, use 2 tablespoons and omit the anchovy paste and soy sauce.

One day I was looking through my cupboard trying to decide what I would have for dinner and came upon a can of coconut milk. The truth is, I only bought it because it sounded fun and exotic, but I had no idea what to make with it. After a little more digging I came up with the coconut-curry combination and the rest, as they say, is history. All right, that might be a little bit of an exaggeration, but it is very tasty-—definitely impress-your-date material.

The first time I had gnocchi—sort of a cross between pasta and a dumpling— was in Venice, and it was great! So of course I had to try to make my own. Mine weren’t as spectacular, but after a few more tries, I got it. The key is to only add enough flour for the dough not to be sticky anymore; otherwise, they’ll be too heavy. When you boil them, you can tell whether the dough is okay. If the gnocchi start to feather and fall apart when you boil them, you need more flour. If they don’t float after 2 minutes, they have too much flour. This is another dish that works well with a nice green salad.

I have loved pad Thai ever since high school when my friends and I found this great Thai restaurant that we went to every chance we got. I have found that making it at home is a more than satisfactory substitute (and, of course, way cheaper). I like to make it spicier and add a little soy sauce, so start out with the recipe here, and then add your own personal touch—that’s what cooking is all about anyway! You’ll see that the recipe calls for vegetarian fish sauce, which may seem like a funny concept, but you can find it online or at some Asian markets (where you can also pick up the rice noodles).

This is one of my favorite salads in the whole book, despite what anyone says about the color. Soba noodles, which are made from buckwheat, are a kind of gray-brown color, so everyone thinks the salad looks a little bizarre or even unappetizing—until they try it and realize that it’s a delicious twist on pasta salad. The lime juice and fresh veggies make it refreshing and light.

Cha gio, which originated in Saigon are among Vietnam’s national dishes. They are often misleadingly translated as spring rolls, because they seem like a riff on the Chinese spring roll, or as imperial rolls, a translation of pâté imperial, their French moniker. But these rolls are not reserved for royalty, nor are they exclusively eaten during the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year). And their filling, wrapper, and accompaniments are uniquely Vietnamese. Out of culinary pride, I encourage people to call these rolls cha gio, their southern Viet name. The rolls are made in varying sizes. Cooks with great manual dexterity create thumb-sized rolls. Lacking such skill and patience, I make stubby cigar-sized ones and cut them up before serving. Larger ones also involve less labor when frying up enough for a special lunch or dinner. Some Vietnamese American cooks use Filipino lumpia or Chinese spring roll wrappers, which are made of wheat flour and fry up crisp, but an authentic flavor is lost. For the best results, use rice paper made of all rice flour or of rice and tapioca flours.

Presented on a platter just moments out of the steamer, a whole steamed fish reflects the cook’s care and attention to obtaining the freshest ingredients possible. Ideally, the fish was plucked live from a tank at the market. Barring that, it met its end shortly before the cook selected it from a bed of ice. This recipe, with its mixture of pork, ginger, onion, mushrooms, and cellophane noodles, is one of the classic Viet ways to steam fish, with the various flavors and textures melding beautifully during cooking. The flavorings are light, so select a mild-tasting white-fleshed fish to complement them. I like striped bass, which is readily available and has delicate flesh, as well as bones that aren’t troublesome; a whole trout weighing about 1 1/2 pounds is another good option. The dish is perfect for entertaining because most of the work may be done hours in advance. Add White Tree Fungus in Clear Broth (page 76), a simply seasoned stir-fried vegetable, and rice for an elegant meal.

These hand rolls are a simple and healthful do-it-yourself meal: you assemble the ingredients and invite guests to do the rest. It is a relaxing experience, with everyone making their own hand rolls, eating, sipping cold beverages, and chatting. In Vietnam, freshwater ca loc (snakehead fish) is often used for this dish, encased in clay and roasted in rice straw, wrapped in banana leaf and grilled over charcoal, or just placed directly on the grill. I prefer the simplicity of the last approach. Trout is the perfect substitute for ca loc, as its sweet flesh stands up well to grilling. The skin crisps wonderfully, too.

The featured ingredient in this homey egg dish is mam nem, a thick, taupe sauce made of salted and fermented fish that is pungent and earthy like a delicious stinky cheese but mellows when combined with other ingredients. This southern Vietnamese seasoning is usually labeled fish sauce, but is different than light, clear regular fish sauce, or nuoc mam. Before using it, shake the small, long-necked bottle vigorously to blend the solids and liquid. In this recipe, the cellophane noodles absorb the savory depth of the sauce and plump up during steaming to give the egg mixture its firm texture. At Vietnamese restaurants in the United States, a small piece of this steamed egg is often included as a side item on rice plates. At my house, I prefer to serve it as a main dish, accompanied by rice, a quick soup (canh), and stir-fried water spinach (page 178).

When it is dungeness crab season (November through May on the West Coast), one of my favorite ways to capture the essence of Cancer magister is to make these golden noodles. Cellophane noodles absorb whatever flavors they are combined with, in this case the sweet brininess of crabmeat and tomalley. This dish is best when it is made with a live crab that you cook yourself. If you are too squeamish to cook crab at home, buy a precooked crab the day it is cooked. But don’t have the crab cracked, as you want all the delicious juices to stay inside. See page 322 for directions on cooking and cleaning the crab and picking the crabmeat.