Wednesday: Om gnom gnom

Whole-wheat purple potato gnocchi with heirloom tomato sauce and sauteed squash blossoms.

This was a bit of a fuss for a weeknight meal, but the results were worth it. We haven't made gnocchi from scratch for probably four years now, so it was about time. They aren't actually technically difficult to make: you just steam potatoes to soft, then mix with flour and one egg and knead till you have a dough. You then roll out the dough and cut into small lengths; finally you drop each piece (gnoccho?...) into boiling water and let it cook until it floats to the top, at which point you fish it out. So, as you may guess from the above, the real problem with them is that they're a bit time-consuming. (Plus you still need to make a sauce to go with them, after all that!)

This is also the first time we've used squash blossoms in anything but our standard fried blossom recipe. They were tasty this way - soft and zucchini-like in flavor.

Saturday: Italian dinner

Fiori di zucca fritti (fried squash blossoms stuffed with anchovy and mozzarella) and puntarella in garlic vinaigrette.

Faithful readers of our humble blog will remember the Puntarelle in Salsa d'Acciughe that we made a couple of weeks ago. Puntarella is a particular kind of chicory, which is not easy to find, and so we used a different variety. This week at the market, we happened to find the real thing - hearts of puntarella. But upon doing a little reading, we realized that this puntarella was harvested at a later stage than it is when it is to be used in the classic salad above. That meant that it was a little tougher when raw, and so we chose to saute it lightly in olive oil (after giving it a good bath):



After sauteing the puntarella, we tossed it in a balsamic vinaigrette with garlic. No anchovies, because they were going to be featured in the next item on the menu...



These are squash blossoms, probably from zucchini or some other type of summer squash plant. They are overabundant this time of year, so some can be spared for this classic Italian preparation. To prepare them for stuffing, the stems and stamens have to be removed and the flowers given a light rinse. Then a small piece of mozzarella (local from Tonjes dairy!) and an anchovy fillet are slid into the flower and the petals are twisted closed:



Each blossom is then dredged in flour, beaten egg, and a flour mixture again, and then shallow-fried for a couple of minutes.

The bitter and vinegary punterella salad perfectly balances the flavor of the very rich and salty squash blossoms.