La Notte del cucchiaio d'argento (Silver Spoon night)

I was the host of the most recent dinner with the girls, and Emily's foray into Indian inspired me to crack open a cookbook of my own that had been collecting dust for years: The Silver Spoon, Italy's answer to The Betty Crocker Cookbook. At nearly 1300 pages, this ponderous book intimidates with both its size and the sheer volume of recipes and information. Not only that, but many of the recipes contain ingredients that are a mystery to even a foodie like me. Cardoons? Porgy? Woodcock? The Silver Spoon was clearly out of my league.

But if Emily could brave her Indian cookbook, filled with even more difficult recipes and exotic ingredients, surely I could rise to the challenge of authentic Italian. I ended up choosing four recipes from The Silver Spoon for my meal: potato gnocchi; tomato sauce; fennel, orange, and walnut salad; and cream and chocolate semifreddo.

The translations of the recipes from the original Italian to English are largely pretty decent, though the occasional idea gets lost sometimes. For example, the gnocchi recipe called to mash the potatoes with a potato masher -- which in my world is one of those bent- or perforated steel tools with which you bash the life out of potatoes in the pot till they are (mostly) smooth -- when what you really need is a potato ricer to give the potatoes an even consistency. I didn't realize this till it was too late, but I managed to work most of the remaining lumps out of the dough with my hands.

That aside, I was happy with how the recipes turned out... and more importantly, my dining partners seemed to enjoy the meal, too. I am no longer afraid of The Silver Spoon, and I look forward to exploring more of its treasures. But I'll pass on the woodcock and cardoons.


Julie and Rebecca, enjoying a Peroni before dinner

Potato gnocchi (basic recipe)
2-1/4 pounds potatoes
1-3/4 c. all-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting
1 egg, lightly beaten
salt
choice of sauce, to serve

Steam the potatoes for 25 minutes until tender, (MG - I don't have anything big enough to steam that many potatoes, so I boiled 'em and that worked fine.) then mash with a potato masher (MG - a.k.a. "ricer") while they are still hot.

Stir in the flour, egg, and a pinch of salt and knead to a soft, elastic dough. Be careful with the ratio of potato to flour: if there is too much flour, the gnocchi will be hard; if there is too much potato, the gnocchi will disintegrate while cooking.

Shape the dough into long rolls just over 2/3 inch in diameter and cut into 3/4-inch lengths. Press them gently against a grater and arrange on a dish towel dusted with flour.

Bring a large pan of lightly salted water to a boil, add the gnocchi a few at a time, and remove with a slotted spoon as they rise to the surface. Drain, put on a warm serving dish, and pour your chosen sauce over them.

Allegedly, makes 4 servings. Unless this is your only dish, this will feed 4 NFL linebackers. That said, the resulting gnocchi are feather-light and practically dissolve on the tongue; they would make any Italian nonna proud.


Fresh gnocchi before they were cooked


My choice of sauce to go with was:

Tomato sauce

Even with canned tomatoes, the resulting flavor of this sauce is fresh and lovely, thanks to the fresh garlic and basil. Sometimes the simplest recipes are the nicest.

9 ounces canned tomatoes or fresh tomatoes, peeled
Pinch of sugar
2 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons olive oil
10 fresh basil leaves, torn
Salt

(MG - Canned tomatoes come in 14-oz. sizes in the U.S., so that is what I used. I increased the rest of the ingredients by half, accordingly.)

Put the tomatoes, with their can juice if using canned tomatoes, into a pan and add the sugar, garlic, and a pinch of salt. Cover and cook over a very low heat for about 30 minutes without stirring. Mash the tomatoes with a wooden spoon and, if using canned tomatoes, cook for a further 15 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and let cool. Stir in the olive oil and basil.

Again, this allegedly serves 4. It was enough for us at the table, but it was not enough sauce for the whole batch of gnocchi (of which there were many leftovers). If I could do it again, I would triple or quadruple the recipe to serve with the gnocchi.