Making baked gnocchi balls wasn't her original plan. But a failed fancy Italian dumpling in tomato-y sauce dish spurred my baking queen into putting on her thinking cap.
And then a light bulb moment popped up💡
She turned the sauteed gnocchi with pasta sauce into a new age delish snack -- something that you'll find at Insta-worthy modish cafes.
Because of the botched first attempt, a lot of work and steps were needed to produce these crispy gnocchi balls.
This is what she did in 'Phase 1'
1. First she boiled the purple and yellow sweet potatoes and mashed them.
2. Then she blitzed some organic oats into oats flour.
3. Combined the oats flour and mashed sweet potato with salt and a beaten egg and formed it into a dough.
4. Rolled dough and cut into pieces. Pressed cut pieces of dough with a fork to form pattern.
5. Boiled the gnocchi al dente.
She wanted to cook some of the gnocchi with butter and cheese and some with garlic. This is a classic Italian dish. But I told her that her sisters will most likely not appreciate such Italian dishes as they've never tried them before and it doesn't sound like something that they'll want to eat.
Then she ransacked the kitchen cabinet and fished out a jar of pasta sauce that grandma recently brought back from New Zealand. And so 'Phase 2' revolved around sauteeing the gnocchi with onions and pasta sauce. However, the dish did not pass my perfectionist baker's high standard.
In 'Phase 3', she pounded a bag of baked bagel snacks that grandma brought back from NZ into crumbs and coated the sauteed gnocchi with pasta sauce with them before rolling them into balls. And in goes the gnocchi balls into the oven. She waited with bated breath the whole time the balls were in the oven as she was worried that the balls would turn out to be yet another failure... coz her tiger mom was ranting and cussing away that she's wasting time and money experimenting on a new recipe again.
Finally the baked gnocchi balls were ready and the baking queen wasted no time in trying them and voila, they were delish. Addictive to be exact!
Crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside.
The balls came in two sizes ~ two giant balls and many bite size ones. She gave some to her beloved kakak Maria. My dear part-time helper of 7 years finally returned from Indonesia after being away on maternity leave for 3 long months. How we missed her!!
After the success of the first batch of baked gnocchi balls, the baking queen made another batch (Phase 4), this time with crushed 'whatever crackers she could find'. She also stuffed a wedge of gourmet cheese (that grandma brought back from NZ too) into some of the gnocchi balls.
These baked gnocchi balls store well in the fridge. To eat, just crank up the toaster and heat up the balls for 10-15 minutes in medium temperature.
From something that initially looked pretty unappetizing (it looked like a bowl of baby pureed food), my creative baking queen transformed it into some aesthetically looking yet delish and healthy snack balls! I'll give her a 10/10 for creativity, determination and taste.
No comments:
Post a Comment