4.9 million recipes for gnocchi?
Have you ever searched for a recipe on Google or another site and found hundreds, even thousands of results and just didn’t know where to start?
If you truly want 4.9 million ways to make gnocchi, then I’m sorry to say but Rouxbe is not for you. In fact, if you want 50 different recipes to make gnocchi, we’d say the same thing. Recipes teach you the “do this… then do this… then do this… etc.” At Rouxbe, we teach you to cook and to have success with cooking – highlighting the how’s, why’s, what to look for, even what to listen for.
The next time you look at a recipe, look for all the absolutes that could not possibly guarantee success for the majority of at home cooks using a recipe. Things like: Bake for 45 minutes. What if your oven is out by 50 degrees? Cooks need to learn how to bake until it is done by learning what “done” looks and feels like.
For gnocchi, most will call for about 2 potatoes, 1 cup of flour and 2 egg yolks. What if the potatoes you use are larger than those used in the recipe? What if the potatoes are of another variety (e.g. Russet vs. Yukon) where water content can vary widely? Are the eggs small, med or large? To increase your cooking success, you need to stop relying on recipes and start acquiring the skills and techniques required to make them.
At Rouxbe we have one basic gnocchi recipe. Why? Because this is all you need. Learn the basics and then learn how to vary the basics with other basics. In our case we created this variation.
To help illustrate why you need to learn the hows, whys, what to look for, etc, here’s a little test. For those that have an oven thermometer (and all should), place it in the center of your over and turn your oven to 300 degrees. Wait 15 minutes and then post the actually internal temperature reading here below this blog post. I bet you’ll see why you need to start learning how to test for doneness and why you need to rely less on recipe absolutes and more on your brain.
Without a solid foundation in cooking, who really needs 4.9 million recipes?
Look forward to your results.
>> What if the potatoes are of another variety (e.g. Russet vs. Yukon) where water content can vary widely? <<
Since your recipe says Yukon can be substituted with Russets, I guess it doesn’t matter? ;)
Actually Russets or Yukons gives me very little information. In a way I cannot rely on your recipe: I’d need to do research on the internet to find out what kind of potatoes you’re calling for, because I live in Europe.
Off the top of my head, I’d guess what’s important is the starchiness, and you’d want good mashing potatoes for gnocchi. But I don’t see this information in your recipe.
Confusingly, this page:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/ck_culinary_qa/article/0,,FOOD_9796_1707592,00.html
puts Yukons and Russets in different categories… but others don’t.
I tried the oven experiment and found my oven to be at 334 degrees. It is a new oven and I expected better temperature control.
Hi Jurie,
I think you might have misunderstood my post… I was asking these questions to get everyone thinking the next time they see a recipe… Recipes in general are very confusing, which is why you can’t rely on what is written (e.g. amounts). Instead, you need to rely on key indicators (e.g. adding flour to the dough, until the dough is ready, rather than just adding 1 cup of flour….). This is what is most important, not the type of potatoes…
Cheers
Joe
We bought an oven thermometer last year because we felt our oven temeratures were “off”. We were stunned by how much. If we set it to 400 it actually goes to 500! If I bake at 325, I need to set it to 300 and turn it it down to 250 once it reaches 300. It has been real experimentation but we are getting better results. I thought it was because the oven is 15 years old but after reading your blog, it appears all ovens may not be accurate.
I have done this test in the past as well, and found out that our oven is sometimes off by 50 degrees.
Just did the test again, set it to 300° F and it’s reading 335° F.
I think many ovens are off, whether new or old.
In fact, our oven is only a few years old and it certainly was not cheap.
Like there is not already enough to think about in the kitchen :-)
I watched your gnocchi video yesterday and was very inspired. I love gnocchi but always feel cheated with the store bought variety. They just don’t taste like the ones I had in Venice.
I think I might just need to get myself a ricer and start making them.
Any chance of creating a video for perogies? I love those too and have no idea how to make them.
I agree of course, but wouldn’t you also say understanding why one should use Yukons and not Russets (for example) is important?
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