Food Notes: 4/8
Gnocchi, nutria, food cars, matzo, and cheese
Just in time for me to think about dinner, Bon Appétit sent me an email promoting their skillet gnocchi with bacon and leeks. My wife has been talking about cooking up leeks all month (well, all of last month), and so it seemed like kismet.
Last month we made some fresh gnocchi to use up the leftover ricotta. We wanted something faster, because it was a mid-week dinner we were cooking up, but the C-town was sold out of gnocchi. Savino Quality Pasta to the rescue! (It’s a local fresh pasta shop where I get sheets of lasagna)
My wife cooked this one up while I entertained our three-year-old who was arguing about pasta shapes. The day before we had served him tubettini, but he had been begging for butterflies. The tubettini were already cooked, but we promised him farfalle the next day. So sure enough, just as the farfalle are coming out of the boiling water, he decides he wants tubettini. Nope, not tonight, Little Boo. He followed this game up later in the week by demanding lots of different types of pasta all at once. I guess he knows what he likes.
We settled down to eat our gnocchi. This recipe was the perfect meal for a chilly, early spring night. It was creamy, salty, and filling. But here’s what we would do differently—and yes, I’m using an EM dash. Am I an A.I. Bot?
Our first hypothetical modification is adding in some white beans, either cannellini, Rancho Gordo Marcellas, or Gigante beans. My cursory internet search had a number of recipes with bacon-leek-beans, but none that also had gnocchi. As we talked it through, we also decided a red bean might be better as a way of introducing some color into the dish.
The other alt-version of this dish that I worked through in my head involved added artichoke hearts. I want to add artichoke hearts to just about anything, but in this case I think the flavor profile was similar to a spinach-artichoke dip, so it would probably work pretty well.
We didn’t try either of these variations, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.
The Latest
Red Sauce turned 3!
Red Sauce: How Italian Food Became American is three years old this week. Luckily, its a history book, so continues to remain relevant.
All The Things We Read
If you missed it, my wife is now writing a sub-section of this Substack, All The Things We Read, a cookbook review, kicking things off with Reem Kassis’s The Palestinian Table.
Rat: It’s What’s For Dinner
If the latest round of import tariffs have made imported salami, prosciutto and wagyu too expensive, maybe you’d like to try domestically grown Nutria, a giant rodent species. The Fish and Wildlife service wants to control these invasive rats by convincing people to put them on a dinner plate.
It’s No Pickle Car
Even if you’ve never seen it, you’ve probably heard of the Oscar Myer Weinermobile. That’s not the only food-shaped car. Seemingly straight out of the mind of Richard Scarry, Blue Diamond has an oversized almond car. Anne Ewbank catches up with the big nut at Gasto Obscura.
Chocolate Matzo is the Best Matzo
Eater tastes tested matzo brands in search of the best. I have been a Manischewitz-brand loyalist, in part because of their Jersey roots, but they rebranded the package last year and I haven’t seen it since. I buy matzo like I buy easter candy: when its on clearance the day after the holiday. But the one thing I always do look forward to is chocolate covered matzo— but I wouldn’t recommend using it for a matzo lasagna.
Cooper Sharp Finally Comes To John’s
The Inquirer reports that John’s Roast Pork will soon offer Cooper Sharp, a popular cheese for cheesesteak enthusiasts, in addition to Land-O-Lakes, the long-time standard for Johns. For those who follow Philly sandwich history, this is a big deal.
Baseball Food
If you missed it, I wrote up a guide to the best foods at every MLB stadium last week. And then promptly forgot to include it in Food Notes.