What is your favorite day to cook? Is there a time of the week when you enjoy preparing a meal for yourself or sharing it with others? It’s usually Friday for me. I cook a lot on Fridays, preparing things for the weekend and looking forward to trying new recipes. For a professional chef, the weekend falls on Monday and Tuesday. the new book, At home in the kitchen: Easy recipes from a chef’s off night by David Kinch, who gave me a review copy, is all about his Tuesday Cooking. This is his Sunday. Unlike the dishes at his Manresa restaurant, his home cooking is a much more relaxed setting. He shares the no-fuss, crowd-pleasing dishes he offers to his friends who join him at his California home, Pink Palace, on these days off. Music is also a big part these days and every recipe in the book comes with a song suggestion. There are some basics to start with like some broth, pickles, croutons and mayo. The chickpea broth reminded me that I had previously learned how dried chickpeas can give a good flavor boost to a homemade broth, but I never seem to remember trying it. Here the stock is completely geared towards chickpeas. It’s recommended for the minestrone with pesto recipe found a few chapters later that I have to try while I have a lot of basil. The first thing I tried was the Spicy Sesame Cucumber with Avocado Salad. It’s thick and nice from the mashed avocado, bright and fresh from the cucumber, and flavorful with jalapeno. If you’re looking to take your grilled cheese sandwich to the next level, this version comes with a crunchy veil of cheese. Cheese is browned in the pan and the finished sandwich is placed on top, allowing you to use a spatula to lift the cheese up the sides of the sandwich, then serve with the crunchy cheese side up. In the pasta chapter, there’s a walnut sauce with ricotta garnished with fried marjoram leaves, and that’s on my to-try list too. There are meat and seafood dishes and jambalaya, paella and California crab boil, but the vegetable dishes kept calling out to me. Another one to try is the black olive aubergine tapenade, which is made with thick slices of aubergine. For dessert there are not too sweet options with lots of fruit. I like the idea of ​​the rice pudding sundae served with different toppings. And the final chapter is drinks with some sangrias perfect for entertaining. However, the dish I want to talk more about today is the ricotta gnocchi with a simple tomato sauce.
This is such an easy gnocchi recipe. It’s just a mixture of ricotta and flour. I made it vegan by using a plant-based ricotta and tossing in some chopped basil. The mixture was patted into a 2.5 cm square and cut into wide slices. Each disc was rolled into a long log and then cut into small pillows. The pillows have been rolled over with a fork to give them a curved shape. They were quickly boiled in boiling water for about a minute. For the sauce, I started with fresh, fabulous local tomatoes. They were peeled by dipping them in boiling water, transferring them to ice water and skinning them off. Cutting an X in the bottom of each tomato before cooking will help peel off the skin. They were seeded and then pureed in a blender. Finely chopped shallots were simmered in lots of olive oil and I also added garlic. Then the tomato puree was added with salt and pepper and left to simmer for a bit. The sauce and cooked gnocchi were combined and topped with basil in my case, although pecorino would be great too.
You can’t beat this fresh tomato sauce made from freshly picked, ripe tomatoes. The way things are going here, our local tomato season is in decline through August. i already miss it But the gnocchi could be made anytime, and they’re so quick to pull together that there’s no reason not to. I miss a Pink Palace near the beach but will have fun cooking the same dishes that are enjoyed there.
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