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Gnocchi a LA Romaine

A boiled gnocchi made with butter, milk, flour, eggs, Parmesan, mace, and salt, served in a cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Henrietta Latham Dwight · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Gnocchi a LA Romaine

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Put two ounces of butter in a saucepan over the fire with two tablespoonfuls of milk.

  2. When this comes to a boil stir in four ounces of flour; then add a cup of milk, let it cook, stirring all the time until it no longer adheres to the pan.

  3. Remove from the fire, let it cool and then beat in three eggs, one at a time, two heaping tablespoonfuls of grated Parmesan cheese, a saltspoonful of mace and a dash of salt.

  4. Set it away to get cold, make it into small balls.

Poach and bake

  1. Have a large saucepan of boiling, salted water on the stove, drop the balls into it and let them boil five minutes, take them out with a skimmer and drain well.

  2. Have ready a cream sauce, put the balls in this, and when they are hot turn into a baking dish, sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and bake until brown in a quick oven.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

894Calories
37 gProtein
33 gFat
108 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 7 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Parmesan Cheese1 oz (28g)110
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Henrietta Latham Dwight. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures. See the original page.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + parmesan cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,608 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the dough and set the gnocchi so they hold their shape when baked.
Flour
Thickens the milk and butter into a paste that forms the body of the balls.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the dough a smooth, tender texture.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury, salty flavour and helps the top brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour paste until it leaves the pan. Stirring until the mixture no longer sticks to the pan cooks out raw flour taste and drives off moisture, so the dough is firm enough to shape and hold together in the water.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, milk, flour, egg, parmesan cheese):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, flour, egg, parmesan cheese. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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