The Meal That Won Me A Californian

When I wrote my culinary tour of Europe post, I left off one particularly memorable meal. I met Mike when he came over for dinner along with my other roommates from the previous day. I had just gone into town and bought some gnocchi and then a few other ingredients I thought would go well with gnocchi, and threw it all together. It was a very easy, and tasty - everyone really enjoyed it. It was also quite an authentic meal, since Cinque Terre is famous for its pesto, and I used strictly local vegetables. Here's the recipe if you want to taste a bit of Cinque Terre for yourself!


PESTO GNOCCHI WITH MEDITERRANEAN VEGETABLES

Ingredients:

Gnocchi with a potato filling
Fresh pesto (the "homemade" pesto from Whole Foods is great; otherwise look for one with authentic ingredients, which include basil, olive oil, parmigiano-reggiano or romano cheese, salt, black pepper, garlic and pine nuts, and do NOT include weird curveball ingredients like cream cheese and almonds and any chemical you can't pronounce)
Sundried tomatoes, sliced into thin strips
Jar of marinated artichokes
Asparagus
Grated fresh parmigiano-reggiano cheese

Method:

I don't like to start cooking until all my prep work is done, so I'm going to give you the recipe steps in the order in which I complete them.

First, prepare all the vegetables: Slice the sundried tomatoes into thin strips and set aside in a bowl. Take the jar of artichokes and remove the artichoke hearts from the jar one by one. This is a really messy job: squeeze out the excess oil and then tear off the leaves and add them to the bowl of sundried tomato slices, discarding any sections with a tough skin.

Wash the asparagus spears; snap off the tough ends and discard. Slice into approximately 1.5" sections. Set asparagus pieces in a steamer. Fill a wide, shallow saucepan with 1" of water in the bottom and bring to a boil. Place the steamer filled with asparagus into the saucepan and steam for 2-3 minutes, covered. Remove from heat and run cold water over the asparagus to stop the cooking process. Set aside.

While steaming asparagus, bring a large pot of water to a boil. When it begins to boil rapidly, add the gnocchi pasta and do not stir. Pasta is ready when all the gnocchi pieces float to the surface. Turn off the stove element and drain in a colander over the sink. When pasta is drained and dry, transfer back to the pot over the cooling stove element (to keep it warm). Add the asparagus pieces, sundried tomatoes and artichokes. Spoon pesto sauce over the pasta and vegetables and stir till coated. Add pesto until coated to your liking, and then dish it up. Serve with grated parmigiano-reggiano and crusty bread.

Substitutions:

If you don't like gnocchi, you can substitute tortellini, penne, fusilli, or any other favourite pasta for the gnocchi. I would just recommend that if you use pasta with a filling of some sort, such as tortellini or ravioli, choose one with a mild-flavoured filling such as three cheeses, so that it will blend well with the other flavours in this dish.

If you aren't into vegetarian dishes, add some chicken - I tried this when I got back home and it worked really well. We just grilled up three chicken breasts (that was enough for five people) on the barbeque, seasoned with nothing but olive oil, cut them up into bite-size chunks and added them to the mix along with the vegetables.

Green beans work just as well as asparagus, so substitute them or use both if you prefer.

Me, Mike, Erick from Sweden, and Dick from Texas just before digging into our meal!