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Beet "Gnocchi."

Beet gnocchi made from beet leaves, cheese, eggs, and curds, boiled and served with butter, nutmeg, cinnamon, and cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Beet "Gnocchi."

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the greens

  1. Wash the beet leaves and remove the mid-ribs.

  2. Boil the leaves.

  3. Transfer the boiled leaves to cold water and dry them.

  4. Mince the leaves finely.

Make the dough

  1. Place the minced leaves in an earthenware pot.

  2. Add cheese, eggs, curds, nutmeg, and salt to the pot. Mix the ingredients well.

  3. When the mixture thickens, place it on a floured surface.

  4. Roll the mixture into finger-sized pieces.

  5. Cut the rolls into 2-inch pieces.

  6. Flour the pieces.

Cook and serve

  1. Drop the pieces into boiling water.

  2. When they float to the surface, remove them.

  3. Drain the gnocchi well.

  4. Season the gnocchi with butter, nutmeg, cinnamon, and cheese before serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beet leaves
Provide the bulk of the filling and its earthy flavour and colour.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm when cooked.
Cheese
Adds savoury richness and helps bind the dough.
Curds or fresh milk cheese
Adds moisture and a soft, tender texture to the dough.

The step that matters

Mixing and shaping the dough. Wet mixtures are sticky, so the dough must thicken and be floured before shaping; too much moisture makes gnocchi fall apart in the water, while too much flour makes them dense and tough.

“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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