Celery Leaf Gnocchi

  It took many years to go from learning to make gnocchi, to looking for a more efficient way to make them, to adapting a few new techniques and then weaving them into traditional methods. We wanted to make light and delicate gnocchi with an intense celery flavor. After traveling down several different paths, we ended up using twice cooked potatoes as the base. We added roughly 12 percent pureed celery leaves with 5 percent whole egg and 15 percent flour. The rest was potato with the addition of 0.5 percent salt. We rolled the gnocchi and shaped them in irregular marbles. After blanching and shocking we had a bounty of celery infused dumplings. The gnocchi hold up well when they are heated, remaining light and delicate on the palate while carrying the intense flavor of celery leaves. Initially we paired them with lobster mushrooms and slow cooked sole. The gnocchi also stood up quite well when we tasted our pastrami bolognese. These pairings were delicious although we believe their ideal match has yet to be found, perhaps a stew of clams or sauteed Nantucket Bay scallops, a bit of bacon and blue cheese or even simply some rich chicken jus and roughly grated Piave Vecchio. There are avenues to be explored here and we will do our best to enjoy the process.