Cookbook Project, Book #189 - The Reboot!
Apr. 15th, 2012 10:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladysprite"The Glorious Soups and Stews Of Italy," Domenica Marchetti
Okay - ultimately, this is the book that made me reboot this entire project. I had been realizing for a while that, after I finished the initial Cookbook Project, I had started slowly accumulating more books, and I kept thinking to myself that I needed to use them, but other things kept getting in the way. I was too busy, I was having too much fun cooking from the magazines that had languished while I was working on the Project, I wanted to remake old favorites....
And then I ran into this book while![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
umbran and I were in Disney World. I love to buy cookbooks as souvenirs, and this was my present to myself while we were traveling. I found it in a store in Epcot, in Italy-land, and once I found it I couldn't put it down. I started browsing through it in the store, I kept reading it as we walked around, I spent half the time waiting for dinner that night oohing and aahing over almost every recipe I saw. And the thought of letting a treasure like this languish unused on my shelf nearly broke my heart.
So, once we came home.... I left it on the shelf for a couple of months. Because life is busy like that. But about a month ago (yes, I'm very behind on writing this up) I remembered my goal of re-starting, and I pulled this book out.
It's truly a wonderful book, and everything in it looks delicious. The recipes are organized by seasons, and many of them admittedly take hours of work, but they all just look so good! I ultimately decided to make Gnocchi di Semolina in Brodo di Carne (Semolina Gnocchi in homemade meat broth), mostly because it seemed like a simple enough flavor blend to be a good test of the book's basic concepts and flavors.
It also meant making two different recipes, since the broth is their base recipes by itself. The brodo di carne is a mixed-meat broth, with chicken and marrowbones as well as a ton of veggies, that cooks for about four hours and is worth every minute of work that goes into it. The soup we made used about 6 cups; the rest has been frozen and will likely be used as the base for yet more recipes from this book.
The Semolina Gnocchi bear no resemblance to standard potato gnocchi; they're more like an odd cross between polenta and matzoh balls. I had tried them once before, whentpau went to New York City, so I had some idea of what to expect, and they were remarkably easy to make. I half expected them to dissolve when they hit the broth, but they managed to hold their shape impressively while still soaking up the tasty goodness of the broth.
All in all, it was delicious. The broth was rich and savory, and the flavors of the gnocchi - semolina, parmesan, and nutmeg - were a surprisingly good complement. For a fairly simple recipe with, ultimately, only a few ingredients, it was a full and complex meal.
I am so glad I tried this, so glad I bought the book, and so, so very glad to be picking this project up again.
Okay - ultimately, this is the book that made me reboot this entire project. I had been realizing for a while that, after I finished the initial Cookbook Project, I had started slowly accumulating more books, and I kept thinking to myself that I needed to use them, but other things kept getting in the way. I was too busy, I was having too much fun cooking from the magazines that had languished while I was working on the Project, I wanted to remake old favorites....
And then I ran into this book while
umbran and I were in Disney World. I love to buy cookbooks as souvenirs, and this was my present to myself while we were traveling. I found it in a store in Epcot, in Italy-land, and once I found it I couldn't put it down. I started browsing through it in the store, I kept reading it as we walked around, I spent half the time waiting for dinner that night oohing and aahing over almost every recipe I saw. And the thought of letting a treasure like this languish unused on my shelf nearly broke my heart.So, once we came home.... I left it on the shelf for a couple of months. Because life is busy like that. But about a month ago (yes, I'm very behind on writing this up) I remembered my goal of re-starting, and I pulled this book out.
It's truly a wonderful book, and everything in it looks delicious. The recipes are organized by seasons, and many of them admittedly take hours of work, but they all just look so good! I ultimately decided to make Gnocchi di Semolina in Brodo di Carne (Semolina Gnocchi in homemade meat broth), mostly because it seemed like a simple enough flavor blend to be a good test of the book's basic concepts and flavors.
It also meant making two different recipes, since the broth is their base recipes by itself. The brodo di carne is a mixed-meat broth, with chicken and marrowbones as well as a ton of veggies, that cooks for about four hours and is worth every minute of work that goes into it. The soup we made used about 6 cups; the rest has been frozen and will likely be used as the base for yet more recipes from this book.
The Semolina Gnocchi bear no resemblance to standard potato gnocchi; they're more like an odd cross between polenta and matzoh balls. I had tried them once before, when
tpau went to New York City, so I had some idea of what to expect, and they were remarkably easy to make. I half expected them to dissolve when they hit the broth, but they managed to hold their shape impressively while still soaking up the tasty goodness of the broth.All in all, it was delicious. The broth was rich and savory, and the flavors of the gnocchi - semolina, parmesan, and nutmeg - were a surprisingly good complement. For a fairly simple recipe with, ultimately, only a few ingredients, it was a full and complex meal.
I am so glad I tried this, so glad I bought the book, and so, so very glad to be picking this project up again.
