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Beet “Gnocchi.”

A dish of boiled beet leaf gnocchi seasoned with cheese, butter, nutmeg, cinnamon, and grated 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 beet leaves

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

  2. Boil the leaves, then transfer them to cold water, dry, and mince finely.

Make the dough

  1. In an earthenware pot, combine the minced leaves, cheese, eggs, curds, nutmeg, and salt.

  2. When thick, place the mixture on a floured surface and roll it into a finger-sized log.

Cook and serve

  1. Cut the log into 2-inch pieces, flour them well, and drop them into boiling water.

  2. Once they float to the surface, remove them, drain well, and season with butter, nutmeg, cinnamon, and cheese.

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 green body and earthy flavour of the gnocchi.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm enough to hold its shape.
Curds or fresh milk cheese
Add moisture and a soft, tender texture to the dough.
Freshly grated cheese
Adds savoury flavour and helps bind the dough.
Flour
Dusting keeps the log and pieces from sticking and helps them hold their shape in water.

The step that matters

Drying the minced leaves before mixing. Leaves that hold excess water make the dough wet and loose, so the gnocchi may fall apart in the boiling water. Drying them well keeps the dough firm enough to shape.

“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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