ffwd - gnocchi a la parisienne

What an interesting recipe! Cream puff dough, poached, and then blanketed in bechamel and baked. Well, in my book, anything with bechamel has to be good. Seriously, such simple ingredients. But even as I looked at the recipe, I thought this can't be good for you!!!

I decided that I would take a couple of Dorie's suggestions, and throw in a twist of my own, since the night that I was going to be making this - there was going to be no sharing involved. When we made gougeres, I loved, loved the idea that I could freeze the unbaked dough, and then pop them into the oven whenever I wanted some. So when  read Dorie's storing suggestion, I vowed to do just that. I made my choux paste, and then plopped about 2/3 of the dough by teaspoonfuls on my lined baking sheet and froze them. I also wondered how the dough would turn out if I baked it. So, for another portion, I formed nice little puffs on another sheet that I could pop in the oven. Then on to making the actual gnocchi! The process was easy, and while there were a number of steps, nothing too terribly difficult. I decided to add a little truffle salt to my sauce, thinking - how can I go wrong?? Of course, it occurred to me that a drizzle of truffle oil on top wouldn't be a bad thing either.

I ended up with a bit more sauce than gnocchi, but that was ok. I thought it was fun to have both the puffs and the gnocchi at the same time, offering some nice contrast.

Let's face it though - this dish is rich!!!! at least mine was. But the gnocchi turned out light and fluffy (even without separating the last egg), and were really lovely. Decadant comfort food, for sure. But a guilty pleasure! I was pleased that my leftovers were still pretty tasty when re-heated - maybe not really perfect, but tastly nonetheless. (I wasn't willing to toss out a single bite!). Now I'm figuring out how I'll prepare the ones I have in the freezer. Hmmm... maybe with a side of sauteed mushrooms? or it really would be good with a nice short rib braised in red wine... I think I'd like to have a little something to offset the richness of the gnocchi and the sauce, but they were awfully good - and the ones in the freezer will be out soon enough!