Gnocci on heaven's door

I've long had a fascination with gnocci. They look so intriguingly cute, and yet can so easily taste so disappointing. Even the notion itself, of boiling little potato dumplings until they float, is almost farcical in nature. I've so often thought of making them and yet until now have never done so.

For guidance I dug out my Carluccio book. Despite being perhaps the most infeasible looking chef on the planet, resembling a ham in a crash helmet more than a man, you can't fault Carluccio's cooking - and his gnocci instructions were simple enough. Mashed potato, flour, egg, a bit of seasoning, what could be simpler.


OK, it's not that simple. Anyone who's averse to sticky fingers shouldn't go near gnocci making, and I think my proportions were quite out of whack because the mixture was perturbingly gloopy. Still, I made the little gnocc's, and did that thing with the fork you're supposed to do. Not half as easy as it sounds. Mine were somewhat oversized, and looked more like a plateload of monkey's fists than teensy gnocci, but there you go.


By the way, anyone who says 'boil the potatoes in their skins and peel them while hot' is having a laugh at your expense. To be fair to the 'Lucc, he didn't even mention it - but it's what I did, because every other gnocci recipe in the world tells you to do so.


Anyway. It was, really, all worthwhile. Here are gnocci served with a Cream and Pompous Pepper sauce, shaved parmesan and butter-panned vegetables. Have you ever encountered single-estate vintage peppercorns before? No, nor had I - they come with an unbleached cotton sack and an obscene pricetag, and are delightfully peppery.



ps. I was planning on cooking up the rest of the gnocci today to serve roasted (yes!) with a roast chicken and a side of celeriac remoulade... Sadly, fresh gnocc's, or at least mine, don't survive well overnight without turning a rather shocking grey colour.

Dining with the Big Cheese

This is a tartiflette.


Along with Fondue and Raclette, it's one of the staples of the Alps. And, along with Fondue and Raclette, it's all about serving melted cheese on boring objects.

For the longest of times I couldn't understand the point of a tartiflette. Until I tried this one. It was served up to me in la Daille, at the base of some wicked slopes, and it was absolutely sublime. The secret of tartiflette is that it's not just melted cheese, it's melted REBLOCHON cheese. Reblochon is a cheese whose sole aim, sole goal in life is to be melted, and ideally melted over potatoes and bacon.

So how'dya cook one? Well, conversations in ski resorts revolve around only two topics - the latest dump, and cheese-based cuisine - so here's what I was told:

Put the potatoes on to boil (you need the right sort of potatoes, but that's a different story). Fry up the onions and bacon until crispy. When the potatoes are ready, mix in the onions and bacon, add white wine, and stir until the wine has dried out. Throw this mess into a heated earthenware dish, top with as many hearty slabs of REBLOCHON as your arteries can handle without choking, and bake in a hot four until ready.

The Tartiflette is not something to be taken lightly - it should be downed with endless quaffs of rich wine, or a tankard of beer, and is best followed with a few descents of the blackest runs you can muster (or, in my case, the greenest).