Gnocchi, fritters and kidneys - you don't get much more varied, than that!

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Even though I do a weekly menu plan, sometimes life just conspires against me and insists on throwing all my plans into disarray.  I’d had a big taste of that disarray last week, which meant that two recipes had been carried over to this week.  Then, not satisfied with the confusion it had already created, disarray attacked at the end of the current week, causing us to have sandwiches instead of a lovely steak & kidney pie – which got put in the fridge until the following day.

The first recipe that got carried over was a Pot Roasted Chicken (which are always gorgeous).  This one was to be accompanied by some gnocchi and tender stem broccoli, in a parmesan cream sauce.

I’ve not had a good track record with gnocchi – which is odd, considering I really like anything even remotely connected with a potato.  Gnocchi have always seemed to me to be nasty glutinous little lumps of wallpaper paste with little or no flavour.  So this was, pretty much, their last swansong before being consigned to the “don’t like it” pile.

I was using ready-made gnocchi and I do acknowledge that homemade gnocchi stand the change of being far superior – if you get them right.  However, this dish had one thing in its favour before we began, which was that it was so quick and easy.  Basically, while the tender stems & gnocchi are cooking, you cook garlic and chilli in butter, add some stock, crème fraiche and parmesan to make a sauce.  Combine everything and you’re there.

The chicken was tender and moist, the broccoli and gnocchi were fresh and delicious.

I do have to add a rider at this stage, though, which is that I feel that the gnocchi and broccoli dish would be far better with some boiled bacon or gammon, than the chicken.  So, the next time a piece of bacon hoves into view, I’ll be reaching for the gnocchi.

So.  Having had one half of a chicken, it begged the question of what to do with the remainder.

I had seen a recipe for some carrot fritters that had intrigued me.  Fried food is not something that I do very often (for all sorts of reasons) and as a consequence I’m something of a novice as regards pancakes and fritters.  However, this recipe just made my mouth water and had to be done.  I originally planned to serve it beside the cold cooked chicken, right up until a Coronation Chicken thought struck me.

The fritters contained fresh coriander and ground cumin, both of which would sit very well beside the curry spices of Coronation Chicken, so yet another sudden change of plan happened.

Once again, the fritters are a simple matter of grating carrot, adding flour, cumin, egg, some chopped onion and some crumbled feta cheese.  Spoon big spoonfuls into a non-stick frying pan and, within a minute or so, you’ve got your fritters.

Everyone thoroughly enjoyed them – and they did indeed go admirably well with Coronation Chicken served on a bed of mixed lettuce.

Our Sunday dinner was intended to be this week’s piece de resistance.  I’d bought a lovely piece of brisket of beef, along with three kidneys (except four kidneys arrived in the bag) to make a lovely steak and kidney pie.  It wasn’t going to be a traditional pie with pastry top and bottom, nor a pudding with suet crust all around.  It was going to be something of a halfway house, with a top crust being suet-based much in the same way as a Teviot pie.  I suppose, it could be classed as a Steak & Kidney Teviot pie, if you wanted to be particular about its name.

Unfortunately, time ran away with me on Sunday afternoon (so much so, that I was doing my online shopping at 10pm) and the meat for the pie went into the oven at least an hour and half later than it should do.  Being brisket, the writing was on the wall there and then.

At 6pm – dinner time – I tried the meat and found it to be crunchy.  Not tough, not bouncy, the teeth went through it okay – but it had an odd crunch to it.  Definitely not done.

So, out came a tin of tuna and we all had sandwiches.

Next day, and we’ve just eaten the Steak & Kidney Teviot – and according to my son, if zero marks where a shop-bought Steak & Kidney begins, then this is (moving his hands apart as far away as they would go) about here – and, engage thrusters – even further.  I think, no, I know that he liked it.  So did I – I doubt I will ever use a shop-bought steak & kidney anything from now on.  Worlds apart.

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Parmesan gnocchi & tenderstem broccoli.

There is chicken there, somewhere!

One of the two recipes that had been carried over until the following week, was a pot roasted chicken accompanied by parmesan gnocchi & tenderstem broccoli.

I was very keen to do this recipe, as I am constantly on the lookout for vegetable side dishes to have with pot-roast chicken.  There's only so many times you can have roast potatoes, lovely as they are.

The great benefit of this recipe was that I could cook the chicken in the morning, then take the meat from the bones and re-heat it for dinner that evening - and the same for the following day.  Oh, and let's not discount the using of the carcass and cooking liquid for stock and/or chicken soup!  The gnocchi recipe seemed to be very easy and wouldn't be too hard on me to produce.

As it was, as a last minute addition, I decided to roast some courgettes and cherry tomatoes to go alongside the gnocchi/tenderstem broccoli dish - and I was very glad of them.  Although the gnocchi dish is delicious, it would have been better served with a robust form of meat such as gammon steaks or roasted gammon.  With the chicken, it tended to muscle the lovely chicken out of the way like a big, burly bouncer would do.  "If yer name's not down on the list (beside the garlic), then you're not comin' in".  As a consequence, it needed the acidity of the cherry tomatoes to provide the balance.  When I do the gnocchi dish again, I'll make sure to do some cherry tomatoes with it unless it's accompanying something with tomato as one of the main players.


Please don't take that as a negative view of this dish, as the softness of the gnocchi provides a lovely counterbalance to the crispness of the tenderstem broccoli, and the freshness of the broccoli provides a counterbalance to the richness of the parmesan.  I'll definitely be doing the gnocchi again, as quite apart from anything else, it's the first gnocchi dish I've ever really liked!


PARMESAN GNOCCHI & TENDERSTEM BROCCOLI  (serves 3)


Ingredients :


a knob of butter
1 garlic clove, grated
teensy pinch of chilli flakes
150ml vegetable or chicken stock (depending on what you're serving it with)
5-6 tbsp creme fraiche (I used a low fat version)
60g parmesan, finely grated
250g tenderstem broccoli, halved lengthways if large
250g gnocchi.


Method :


1.  Heat a large pan of salted water until boiling.  While it's heating :


2.  Heat the knob of butter in a frying pan and cook the garlic and chilli for 2 minutes.


3.  Add the stock, bringing to a boil and continue boiling until reduced by three-quarters.


4.  In the meantime, cook the broccoli until just tender.

5.  Whisk in the creme fraiche and parmesan to the stock, to make the sauce.

6.  Add the broccoli when done and retain the cooking water, to which you should add the gnocchi and cook following pack instructions (around 3 mins).  Drain and add to the broccoli and sauce.

7.  Toss to cover with the sauce and serve.


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