Pg. 72 –  Lucky Peach Issue #1

According to Dave Chang, this recipe is a French riff on Italian potato gnocchi. Lemme tell ya, it was a really interesting process to create and I actually wondered how in the world he even started thinking about making this. It’s really a trip if you think about it. Essentially, you’re making gnocchi dough out of instant ramen, milk, and eggs. Being part Sicilian, I’ve had my share of pasta making adventures. Every Christmas, I’m fortunate enough to make homemade tamales and homemade ravioli and gnocchi. If I even suggested making the latter with instant ramen dough I would get laughed out of my Aunt Bernice’s kitchen.  But, I think it’s cool and I was seriously curious about how it would taste. It was delicious (though my neighbor and I still think the Fideo recipe rules all so far).

I like to get as much of my prep out of the way as I can. So, I had to get some egg yolk ready and I figured I’d take care of the herbs too. I grow Tarragon, but didn’t have enough for this recipe right now, so I scored all the herbs from the Hollywood Farmer’s Market, which I recommend checking out if you’ve never been – take the subway or get dropped off if you can. Parking sucks and is like $3/hr on the meters. Pretty lame.

Yep, that’s me. I’m still using the Sapporo instant ramen too. Good stuff.

I started by boiling the milk…

…added the instant ramen…

…strained it…

…threw it in the blender, added the yolks…

…started drinking wine…

…then, no kidding, my blender started having a really hard time with the thickness of the dough. We decided my blender sucks and transferred the dough to my food processor, which totally did the job.

The next part sucked because my pastry bag (that I bought at Vons, so no wonder) was just too small, but we were up in it, so I made the best of it.

The gnochhi came out pretty cute after all that hard work.

I fried it up with lots of butter.

Squeezed some lemon on it, though I found that Dave did not put this in the list of ingredients nor say exactly how much to use – he simply instructs you to add the lemon juice to the gnocchi after its cooked and toss it well. So, I went with one small lemon that I plucked from our tree outside. It seemed enough, though I might even do another half because I like the taste of lemon in pasta.

This dish is totally tasty. It works, the gnocchi is good consistency and has that melt in your mouth quality that good homemade pasta has. The herbs make it, so get fresh tarragon, parsley, and chives to top it off with. I really think fresh or handpicked herbs make a big difference. The recipe makes two bowls, so share with your neighbor Sharon if you have one.