Return to Gnocchi: The Continuing Search for Pillowy Dumplings

Those of you who have been following my efforts to make gnocchi know that my last attempt at reaching gnocchi nirvana was more like gnocchi meets scrambled eggs. Not that I don't like something that resembles a cheese omelette but not exactly what I had in mind. So, here we go again, this time with pictures to document the attempt.

And this time, we got it right! Soft, melt-in-your-mouth gnocchi!

Microwave 1/2 gallon of whole milk (not ultra-pasteurized!) for 15 minutes.
If there is evidence of boiling, remove skin from the top. It will easily stick to a spoon. Don't try to get it all.
Pour in 1/3 cup vinegar, in this case cider vinegar. Note, the color of the vinegar will affect the color of the curds. It will start to curdle. These pictures are after about 15 minutes.
Let it sit to curdle. If after an hour or so, the whey is still white like milk, give it a stir to redistribute the vinegar and another 3 minutes in the microwave to bring it back up to temperature. Do not microwave too long at this stage or your cheese may become rubbery.
It is ready for the next step when it is cool enough to handle and the whey looks like chicken broth.
For draining, I use a screen strainer in a collander in a bowl. I don't do this directly over the sink because I don't want to risk losing the cheese.
Periodically tilt the bowl over the sink to get rid of the whey. Save the whey if you have a use for it.
Tilt the strainer, holding the cheese with a spoon to get all the separated whey out. In the past, I used muslin instead of the screen strainer and wrung the ball of cheese out. This made it too dry and rubbery. Your cheese should resemble ricotta.
Transfer the cheese to a dry bowl and stir about 1/2 tsp. salt and 1 egg.
Sift and stir in 1 cup of flour about one quarter at a time.
The dough you will end up with is quite sticky.
To form the gnocchi, use two teaspoons, a bowl of sifted flour, and something to make grooves in the gnocchi. I use the back of a tile. Even poking your thumb in a gnocchi will give it someplace for sauce to cling so don't let shaping them intimidate you.
Drop dough by spoonful into the flour and sweep flour on top of it. Then shake off the excess flour and roll into a rough ball. This picture shows, among other things how hard it is to take a picture with one hand!
Flatten the resulting ball on your grooved surface. Then lift it on one edge to roll it off the grooves.
Gently pick up the gnocchi by its ends and they will flatten as you transfer the gnocchi to a lined cookie sheet.
When the gnocchi are frozen they can be moved to plastic bags or other storage container. Keep the gnocchi frozen until you are ready to cook them.
To cook the gnocchi, place them in gently boiling water and when they float move them to the sauce of your choice. Allow the gnocchi to continue to cook in the sauce for another 3-5 minutes. Here, the gnocchi are shown in homemade pesto with mushrooms, summer squash, a minced shallot, and flat-leaf parsley.

Chasing Fluffy Gnocchi

Each batch of gnocchi comes out looking a bit better and they really don't take very long to make, even making cheese from scratch. And with each batch of cheese I make, even that becomes easier.

Oh, drat. We just ate them. They disintegrated a bit in the water and then they felt grainy like an overcooked scrambled egg. Blech.

Today's variation on the hunt for the fluffiest gnocchi tries to use absolutely as little flour as possible, partly because I am going to share these with a friend who is a carb phobe and partly because I'm guessing that the less flour in them the fluffier they will be.

I use the grooved back of a ceramic tile for getting the grooves on the gnocchi. My father bought the tiles many years ago as pizza stones in the oven. Anything with grooves will do.

So, from start to finish, here 'tis.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 gallon skim milk (not ultra-pasteurized)
• 1/2 cup white wine vinegar
• 1 egg (and a 2nd egg if needed)
• 1 oz. finely grated parmesan
• salt, white pepper & freshly grated nutmeg
• 1/2 cup flour (most of this will be discarded at end)
  

Procedures:

1. Pour the milk into a large microwaveable container
2. Microwave the milk on high for about 15 minutes until it is very hot but not boiling over
3. Pour the vinegar into the milk and let sit 30 minutes
4. Reheat in the microwave on high for another 5 minutes
5. Let sit another 30 minutes or until cool enough to handle -- at this point the milk should have separated into curds and whey
6. Pour the mixture into a colander lined with muslin or a few layers of cheese cloth and let drain.
7. Wring the cheese in the cloth until it is quite dry.
8. Whir the homemade cheese, parmesan, egg and seasonings in the food processor. If the mixture remains in crumbs, add a second egg. The mixture should be stiff enough to leave the sides of the blender and form a lump.
9. Sift the flour into a small bowl for rolling the gnocchi.
10. Spoon up enough dough to make a 3/4 inch ball and drop it into the flour.
11. Roll the dough in the palms of your hand to make a ball, shaking off the excess flour.
12. Place the ball of dough on your grooved instrument (tile, fork, etc.) and flatten the ball a bit.
13. The gnoccho should now be shaped somewhat like a raw cookie that has been flatted with a fork, flat side up. Pick up one edge of it and roll it on itself.
14. Place each gnoccho on a lined cookie sheet and freeze.
15. When the gnocchi are completely frozen, move them to a plastic bag.

To cook the gnocchi, boil them in plenty of water just until they float. Then place them in the sauce of your choice and let them finish cooking a little in the sauce.

This batch made 28 medium large gnocchi. If you use low fat or whole milk you will have more cheese and therefore more gnocchi.

I will let you know when we eat this if we've finally accomplished the ethereally light gnocchi I've read about but never really experienced, truth be told ...

In a word, NO.

Quark is Not Just a Subatomic Particle

The FreeDictionary has two definitions for "quark." The first: "Any of a group of six elementary particles having electric charges of a magnitude one-third or two-thirds that of the electron, regarded as constituents of all hadrons." The second: "A soft creamy acid-cured cheese of central Europe made from whole milk." Guess which one I've been playing with!

Quark is simply milk heated, soured by acid, and wrung out. Quark spread on toast is to die for.

There are many sets of instructions for quark on the web and I've made two batches so far trying to develop quark-making skills.

First, you must get milk that is not ultra-pasteurized. Ultra-pasteurized milk has been heated to such a high temperature that the proteins in it will not form a curd. Local milk brands are less likely to be ultra-pasteurized than more widely distributed brands. The container should tell you whether the milk is pasteurized or ultra-pasteurized.

The acid can be anything. My first batch was made with a combination of lemon juice and rice vinegar. The second batch was all lemon juice. Acidity varies. If at first your mixture doesn't want to separate, heat it back up and add more acid.

It can be flavored with anything. The second batch made with all lemon juice was flavored with the lemons' zest. I'm looking forward to trying lots of other sweet or savory additions.

Equipment needed to make quark:

• a heavy sauce pan for heating the milk
• a spoon for stirring occasionally to prevent scalding and to break the skin that forms during heating.
• a thermometer or a good sense of when the milk is 180°-190° Fahrenheit.
• A sieve or collander with lined cheesecloth or muslin.
• Something to catch the whey.
• Something to wrap the cheese in (e.g. freezer paper, waxed paper, plastic wrap, etc.)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 gallon pasteurized (not ultra-pasteurized milk)
• 1/3-1/2 cup acid (e.g. lemon juice, vinegar, etc.)
• salt (optional)
• flavoring (optional)

Procedure:

1. Heat milk slowly in a heavy saucepan to 180°-190° Fahrenheit. Try hard not to scald the milk on the bottom of the pan. If you do scald the milk, be careful not to scrape the bottom when you stir it.
2. Remove from heat and add the acid, stirring once.
3. Cover and let sit for an hour or more. By this point, the milk should have turned into a slurry of milk solids and clear liquid. If the liquid is still milky, add more acid and reheat.
4. Strain the liquid through the cloth, catching the curds and discarding the whey. At this point you can add the salt if desired.
   
5. As the draining slows, form a ball by gathering and twisting the edges of the cloth. The more you wring, the dryer and crumblier the cheese will be.
6. Form the cheese into the desired shape, wrap and refrigerate.
   

That's all there is to it.

My first batch, which I had to reheat and add vinegar to when the juice of one lemon wasn't acidic enough, was smoother than my second batch. The second batch tasted wonderful being made all with lemon juice and having had the lemon zest added to the hot milk but I think I should have added just a touch of sugar to it as well. I am going to do another experiment to see if the second heating results in the smoother cheese. So far, I've only tried whole milk but some web sites say you can use low fat milk as well.

Imagine making a "vinegar batch," chopping up some oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes adding them before you shape the cheese. Serve this with some of the tomato oil drizzled over it as a spread for crackers. Yum.