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[genghisconeat]

Quarantine has me eating two dinners a day...

Sorry to my zero readers, I am starting off this recipe with a story. I am a New Moon Leo, I cannot help myself. 

The LA lockdown has me indulging the devil on my shoulder aka my second dinner stomach. Second dinner stomach does not want to eat kale. Second dinner stomach is not interested in lean meets. Second dinner stomach does not give a fuck about my 9-5 lactose intolerance. I think this body part is a close coworker to my quarantine liver. Liver working the “it is okay to drink at 3pm” circuit. Maybe fear of unemployment leads to frontal lobe damage in 28-year old petite asian girls. People of science, let me know. 

I made this recipe while listening to “XS” by japanese-anglo queen Rina Sawayama, who my blessed friend George introduced me to two sunsets ago. On repeat. No ear buds. Sorry my dear husband. 

So many apologies. My inner Cancer is SCREAMING. 

The Inspiration: I have been watching a ton of korean street food videos and have been craving spicy rice cakes. I had no rice cakes at home, but thankfully had some gnocchi. Despite my love of potatoes, I am generally indifferent to gnocchi and had only grabbed it in my first pandemic-panic shopping spree. Good choices under pressure. 

Toasted Gnocchi with Kimchi Butter Sauce

Serving Size: Party of 1 

Ingredients:

1 pound potato gnocchi

1/2 onion finely chopped

4 - 8 garlic cloves to taste 

3/4 cup napa cabbage kimchi 

1/2 cup kimchi juice 

4 tbsp unsalted butter

2 tbsp olive oil (enough to saute onions and garlic if not using bacon fat)

1 tbsp sugar

1 tsp kosher salt

Pepper to taste (a whole lot for me)

Cool but not necessary

2 strips of bacon 

1/4 cup of red pasta sauce (or 1 tbsp of red pepper paste?) idk thought it might work

1 green onion

Dice onions, mince garlic, chop green onions (use the white part too, it won’t bite), chop kimchi. Chopped kimchi should be similar in size if slightly bigger than diced onion. Set aside.

If using bacon, start here: 

Cut bacon into chocolate chips sized bits. M&M size works too. In a dutch oven render our the fat on the bacon bits. Do this on low heat so we can get all the fat out without cooking through the bacon. We do not want any burnt bits. When most of the fat is cooked out, try to scrape out bacon with a spoon. At this moment, members of the Bon Apetit test kitchen would delicately remove the bacon with a slotted spoon or perhaps a fish spatula. As I have been trying to save money and curb my drunk Amazon prime shopping, these items are not at my disposal...yet. Set aside bacon preferably in the bowl you will be eating with. For the sole purpose of doing fewer dishes. I used one of those shallow pasta bowls. 

If using olive oil, start here

Heat olive oil (or use leftover bacon fat). Toss in onions. On medium-low heat, cook onions for 3 minutes. Then throw in minced garlic. Cook for another 2 minutes. I am always nervous to burn garlic because I hate starting over and will end up just eating burnt garlic. Fun. So aromatic. So refined. 

Turn heat up to medium and throw in chopped kimchi. Let this cook for 5 minutes. Pour kimchi juice at this time and cook for another 5 minutes. Reduce heat back to medium-low and add in 2 tbsp of butter, sugar, pepper, salt, and tomato sauce (optional). Let the butter melt down and cook for another 5 minutes. Or whenever it looks like it is one sauce, one world. Then try best to scoop and place in same bowl as bacon. The sauce should be pretty oily because of all the bacon and butter. Try to get all of the oil out if possible. I think there is flavor in there. If not flavor, a few cents of butter. And in this economy, those butter-pennies are not to be wasted. Set aside. 

Now I have this dirty dutch oven. I use a towel to hold the handles, then bring it to sink to rinse with water. Try to get any burnt bits off, it is okay if it is still a bit greasy. Wipe down so surface is not wet. Again, greasy is okay. 

Because of poor time management and inability to more than one thing at a time, I now start to boil water. You could have done this earlier, but I did not want to stress myself out. I usually start the boiling water in an electric water boiler while I fill the pasta pot to 1 inch of water and let that try to start to boil on the stove. The inch of water is so the pot is not just ripping hot by itself on the stove. I have this unverified worry that heating an empty bot is somehow dangerous or bad for the pot. Though the resolution may be one google search, I prefer to manage my trauma with one inch of water. Once electric kettle water is boiling, I pour into the bowling 1 inch of water. Have I saved time? I am unsure. Do I continue to do this? Every time. 

From here, throw the gnocchi into water. I chose not to salt the water because the gnocchi is only there for 2 minutes. After 2 minutes, drain gnocchi. No need to reserve any pasta water. That is usually when I burn myself anyway. Shake the drainer furiously. The intention is to get the gnocchi pretty dry because we are going to toast it. The water might make it steamy. This could be a good time to pat down the gnocchi with a towel. Paper towels are in limited supply at grocery stores, so I am opting to conserve. 

In the dutch oven heat up 2 tbsp of butter over medium-low heat. When butter is warm and shiny, put in half of gnocchi for toasting. It should be light to medium brown, but not black. After 1 minute, flip gnocchi to crisp other side. I honestly just tossed it around and hoped for the best. If you are a person of purpose, you can flip each gnocchi with chopsticks. I was hungry. Let second side toast for 1 more minute. Remove gnocchi and put in eating bowl that has bacon and kimchi sauce. The butter probably has separated at this point. But I really have no idea to help myself or you with that problem. Toast rest of gnocchi repeating same steps as above. 

When the second half is done toasting, throw everything in the eating bowl back into the dutch oven. At this point, because doing two things at once is hard, everything is probably not warm. Cook everything together for 10 minutes on medium heat, stir frequently to avoid burning. If you think it is overcooking stop earlier. 

Pour contents of dutch oven back into eating bowl. Sprinkle green onions over top. We have finished cooking. Your second stomach bellows out in victory. Walla walla. Eat alone. 

Pairing Notes: I ate this with a glass of chardonnay that I got a discounted 2 bottles for $10 at the supermarket. It was fine and divine all at once. Something I would have loved to add is some mozzarella cheese, maybe at the end, just so it gets a little melty. Maybe 1/4 cup? Maybe 1/2 a cup? Maybe 1/4 cup inside pasta? And another 1/4 side mozzarella for snacking? All reasonable additions. 

Personal Notes: It is really strange to be using tumblr at 28 versus when I first got an account in high school. It is way less fun seeing a penis gif on here than it used to be. 

Hope you enjoy the recipe! <3

Peace and pizza,

Connie, the Amateur who Tries