Piemonte Meal

The first step of this meal was to make the Gnocchi dough.  I simmered milk and then slowly added the semolina flour while whisking it. Once the flour was all mixed in, I added parmigiano cheese, eggs, and butter. I then spread the dough out in a baking pan so it was about 1/2 inch thick, and put it in the fridge for an hour. Once the dough was cool I cut out circles and placed them on a parchment lined baking sheet. I added breadcrumbs and more parmigiano to the top and baked them for about 45 minutes. It was MUCH easier than making pasta!

Once I had the Gnocchis in the oven I started to make the green "inside and out" salad.  To make this salad you are supposed to use Puntarella, which is a type of chicory, but Wegmans doesn't carry chicory, so instead I used dandelion greens to replace the outer leaves and baby frisse to replace the inner leaves. I thought it was interesting that to steam the dandelion greens it said to simply not dry the greens after washing them instead of adding water to the pot. After steaming them I added lemon juice and olive oil. To garnish it I added toasted walnuts, which I didn't burn for the first time in my life! For the "inside" salad I made a dressing of lemon, anchovies (only on my dad and grandma's) olive oil and salt. It was fairly simple and really good!

The next dish that I made was actually the first to be served.  Making the garlic anchovy dip was not fun for me, because I had to finely mince a lot of anchovies and the smell was horrible. I also had to peel three whole heads of garlic which was pretty time consuming.  I boiled the garlic, and then mashed it into a paste, and heated up the anchovies, garlic and olive oil in a saucepan. The recipe called for cardoon to dip in the sauce, which I couldn't find, so I used the stems of artichokes instead. I boiled them in the water left over from the garlic and they were delicious.  I made a version both with and without anchovies, and my dad claims the anchovies made it much better but I refused to try it.

This was my first dessert that went as planned and tasted great. I caramelized the pears in lemon juice and sugar, and after about an hour added the almonds and prunes for 20 minutes. I have always had trouble whipping cream, and went a little past "soft peaks" as the recipe called for, but the cream melted in with the caramel sauce and tasted delicious. I was very happy with this meal!