Sohla Makes Medieval Gnocchi (with Carla Lalli Music!) | Ancient Recipes With Sohla

i feel like before we drop the gnocchi should we try and achieve a simultaneous clap yeah how do do we need to hey okay don't splash hey there i'm sola ely and this is ancient recipes with sola in each episode we take a dish you may recognize and attempt to recreate one of the oldest versions of it to ever exist so it's a little cooking a little history and a whole lot of me what's not to love [Music] in today's episode we're gonna make the earliest version of the cutest pasta there is gnocchi you know i don't know if gnocchi's technically pasta or a dumpling but either way it is adorable and delicious and i'm so excited because today i have a special guest helping me my friend professional chef author amateur ukuleleus carla lolly music ciao i'm so excited that you're here for our gnocchi adventure i couldn't be more excited no no honestly how do you pronounce gnocchi gnocchi yeah okay okay and the recipe we're gonna make today actually does not have an ingredient that most people associate with monognochi which is potatoes potatoes potatoes yeah because uh in italy they didn't get potatoes until about 1500 and then potatoes really didn't start getting a lot of action until a few hundred years later they had to warm up to it they had to warm up to it and you have not yet warmed up to it no i have never made even a gnocchi with potatoes well today's not going to be the day the recipe that we're going to be making today is the earliest written recipe for gnocchi a nugget sized grooved version and it's technically not an ancient recipe it comes to us from bartholomuscapi from his cookbook la opera del arte del cucinare which was written in 1570. good for him good for him yeah yeah i've heard some good things about this guy so i'm excited to try his gnocchi okay so for this gnocchi we're gonna use flour egg yolks water and we need one pound of grated stale bread flour two ways flour two ways yes uh pre-bread and bread yes so i guess we're gonna start by grating a pound making a pound of uh grated bread amazing yeah okay we got you this ancient grater love it love the size mm-hmm uh-huh yeah i i and you know we're just gonna do this for a very long time things were a lot harder then everything was harder they didn't have anything to do though no but they lived shorter lives so they had to really pack it up did you want to spend the day grating bread if you're going to die soon exactly i do feel like this is going to be like a paint poish because we're grating it i know i've been trying to figure out what the bread is doing in this recipe yeah well okay so it's two thousand flour one pound of bread crumbs i imagine it's gonna prevent it from being like rocks this is gonna be a tough gnocchi right it's gotta be because normally you would add something in there to get in the way yeah but we're adding gluten so is it the fat that's going to make things better there's not a whole lot of fat yeah well you know this might take a while we're just going to keep it up should we bring in some modern equipment to assist us perhaps he speeds things up for us sometimes we're gonna this is good if they had had this they would have used exactly i definitely think so bartholomew if you're out there you want us to do this i believe it in my heart see so carla did you know that the first written recipe for gnocchi was in opius which was written in the first century but it wasn't a gnocchi like this it was nuquiela romagna which is like these little flat discs of semolina pasta with lots of cheese right that's not you still no potato still no potato though right right there's no potato there i don't know how they were living without potatoes they had flour they had flour yeah which is good yeah yeah should i do a little blitz i think so okay let's get in here well can we figure this out is it down is it backwards yeah oh the new ones they made so you can't cut yourself but it's really annoying don't stick your hands in it while it's on exactly people are getting dumber huh i think we broke the food processor pretty much well back to the greater it is [Music] look at that this is a good way to get going right i think so all right thank you okay so in his recipe he says we mix the flour with the bread crumbs and some water and then add in yolks and then knead so in the recipe that i looked over there was a mention of a fat broth right yeah it said fat broth or water and i've been like obsessed with what a fat broth is for days yeah yeah he said to simmer it in water or a fat broth yeah and that sounds good which is like that water with olive oil or is that leftover from boiling some meats yeah i'd like to think it's left over from boiling meats right same like a really cloudy frodo i wish we could call him yeah what did you mean by following you your instructions were great we just have this one detail so you're just like going for it i guess i mean with these ancient recipes you just gotta you just gotta get it they're never too specific but actually bartholomew he is considered one of the first celebrity chefs um he worked for pope and it was so stressful um i can imagine right but he decided to take time off to write a cookbook yeah and it's like one of the first cookbooks of his time to be so specific with its measurements and photos and techniques and um yeah i guess he's the reason we're all doing this cooking all the pope's meals does sound stressful that's a lot of pressure what is it pope pope the seventh i don't know which pokey was i wonder what he requested right gnocchi every day they were grating bread every day every single day all right you know what i found really interesting with doing all of these is that the majority of the recipes are better than i thought right like they all sound crazy and then you're like hmm i think i like this ancient apple pie that's cool they're all harder than you think though yeah like the grating bread okay what do you think are we at a place to distribute yeah let's get it up if we need a little more water maybe we just yeah i'm gonna give you half of this responsibility fabulous so that i'm not out here struggling with this disaster oh delicious love it right here have some yolk [Music] okay so yeah it's crazy during the renaissance pasta didn't mean pasta as we know it now it more meant like pastries and all of the things that we think of pasta now were macaroni i love that yeah and i guess it's because the origin of the word pasta comes from the latin pasta which means like a a porridge oh amazing but so another like a like cooked grain yeah i guess so but i mean i guess doughs are kind of like porridges maybe sure wheats are grain grains or porridge and oats or grains yeah they're just settled into wheat cause that's what semolina is and if that other old gnocchi amazingly i feel like things are starting to come together yeah i feel like i want to start rolling off a hunk of this this is going to be enough gnocchi for a whole block it's great so much dough okay all right all right were you thinking to go out to like a snake snake's head yeah it's like play-doh time yeah this is the best part i love rolling dough into snakes truly it's pretty firm yes this is very dense i i don't know i don't know about this i don't know bartholomew maybe the pope was some riding him because he couldn't figure out how to make this light right he told everybody that he left because he was stressed out but really he wasn't going to make a gnocchi okay so he said about what an inch and then we're going to try different methods to form it we've got the modern mm-hmm and then i guess back then they would sometimes shape it right on the grater cool which makes sense because you've got it out and the grooves are all about the sauce all right how's your log coming along good so i have some cracking but i'm also definitely feeling the spraying back of the gluten yeah yeah me too this is uh these are gonna be chewy chewy dense can i have a piece of yeah take it oh yeah yours feels better i don't know why maybe i gave you the bad hat it was all fine it's on me oh yeah way better so we're gonna finish this gnocchi with a little bit of cinnamon sugar whoa cheese wow wild right sweet sweet and savory yeah but you brought your tomato sauce to try some as well that's right so how do you make your sauce so the sauce is super simple you actually don't even need a knife oh awesome you can use the same grater that we use for grating the bread to actually just grate the tomato so it kind of makes this pulp it's like a pasada like you could do the same thing with a food mill um and then that goes in a pan with um some olive oil garlic some basil and then because it's already so liquidy it's like halfway to sauce by the time it hits the pan um some chili flake salt and pepper cook it 15 minutes just to like slightly thicken it and i think that'll be nice with these so it's still gonna be pretty like fresh and bright and have like those raw tomato vibes it's gonna be like gnocchi bruschetta oh i like that tomato bruschetta gnocchi yeah that sounds good i'll just break off the piece that didn't work nobody has to go nobody has to know yeah nobody has to nobody knows nobody there's nobody here mm-hmm just me and you developing some gnocchi and some gluten we're definitely developing gluten okay should i should i form one on the modern board and then we can talk about the knuckles yes yes okay beautiful board by the way i made it myself yeah all right so here we go look at that little gnocchi beautiful so we got a little cup for some sauce we got grooves for sauce okay so did you know gnocchi actually means knuckles with the grooves in here you can totally see totally see it yeah little knuckles smart i mean it's like aura caddy means ears cause they look like little ears yeah yeah they're very literal back then do you want to try the modern board yeah let me try rolling it off the board you know for a long time i didn't even have one of these i've always just used a fork oh yeah i love how it curls over on itself mm-hmm awesome yeah and i feel like having this like groove instead of just like a nugget is going to make it feel less tough is that also for shaping try we wanted to try a little a little ancient fork you know we we also have modern forks but let's see how that works hmm i mean it worked it totally works this one feels more knuckle-like that looks like a baby's fist a nice fat baby knuckle yeah baby knuckle they they look so dense and tough though compared to like a they feel pretty leading i'm not gonna lie yeah all of the ancient food is just like it sits in your belly because you gotta eat it and then probably go out to a field and harvest some wheat to make more gnocchi there's a lot of labor yeah well i mean they grate their bread that's kind of cool though very interesting i like that yeah i like that more than i thought shall we try the grater yes we can do this one simultaneously scoppy said a little flour a little flour okay scaffy grass yeah i do not like this you don't why it just i just feel like it's not gonna have as much sauce holding potential as like this dude full of gray not nearly yeah not even close and i mean if you've got everyone's got a fork right sure you're you're more likely to have a fork than a than a grater i think i mean i hope you have a grater if you're making a pound of steel crumbs yeah i wonder if they had bread crumbs you could buy from the bakery i don't think so no [Music] so if you had to pick one gnocchi to make again what would it be modern right yeah it's fast efficient they come out really uniform even if you don't know what you're doing yeah yeah best of both worlds and you don't need the board if you had a little fork a little fun it's totally great yeah yeah but like here we have the ancient fork yep modern board and bartholomew's uh yeah cheese crater version which i'm not i'm not really feeling art no all right i think we've got enough for lunch i think so yeah let's uh consolidate onto your board and then get some water boiling we need it if you don't have fat broth if we don't just go with water we'll go with water with a lot of salt we'll get some fat on the side perfect [Music] we are ready to boil we've achieved boiling water without a fireplace wow um so we need to season with salt salt cauldron going in this is how you season water keep going more yeah why the hell not i love it these don't have any salt they have no salt they're going to need help they're going to need help do you feel good about that amount of time yeah okay yeah i think that's good i feel like before we drop the gnocchi should we try and achieve a simultaneous clap yeah how do we need to hey okay do you want to see one to get a sense of like how long oh yeah that's a good ability because maybe we shouldn't put them all in at once that might be a disaster let's do one and one here i'll sacrifice one of the um bartholomew style i followed me thank you okay let's see what happens cause the worst thing that can happen is that it falls apart in the water like that's what i don't think that's gonna happen i don't think these are even gonna fall apart in our mouths i can't even see them no they're gone now they're long gone this feels more like more like pasta than gnocchi to me just because of how much the dough has worked and stuff like that true and i feel like with fresh pasta you would wait for it to come up oh some things there you go should we give these a taste i think so yeah they seem floaty okay one for each of us here we go hmm okay a little bouncy but not as dense as i thought wonderfully seasoned yeah i think we should get in there ah don't splash that's the safest way to drop it but you know we got him in there we got him in there [Music] you've already prepared your tomato sauce easy peasy grated tomato garlic chili flake little basil salt and yum so it's like we're gonna have our entree gnocchi and our dessert gnocchi exactly yeah and these guys are floating ready to come out they look shiny and amazing let me take some for sweets and then here you go for savory they really plumped up they really did maybe we could have gone a little smaller well i think also the bread must have absorbed yeah [Music] yeah for sure what if this ends up being like the best gnocchi you ever had you never know you just don't know okay so for bartholomew's gnocchi yeah i'm gonna finish it up with a little sug hmm interesting right very i don't know how much sug i'll stop there that feels like it's enough that's good to me a little cinnamon i know gnocchi is food for the people but the cinnamon and sugar might not have been right right sugar i think was very expensive i think so too butter just hunks of butter hunks of butter which i i have no problem with ever right never no maybe maybe you're getting a little crazy with the butter but that's fine right and then we're going to finish it with a little bit of provatura cheese cheese sugar and cinnamon sounds good together right sounds really good yeah and now i guess there's nothing left to chew but taste that's right i think they smell good together that's me they do cinnamon are now like mingling they're friends i definitely want to start with yours okay start savory cool right yeah move into our dessert gnocchi can't wait yeah it's finally done it smells amazing it smells really good i'm i'm really excited to do this okay so shall we a little savory a little savory to start i like this sauce ratio this is like the gnocchi duo yeah when duos were a really big thing yeah yeah don't bring that back this is different it's in the name of history okay this smells really good it looks really good super saucy mm-hmm should we do should we plate a little sweet and a little savory yeah just get crazy i love it well this is this is gonna be a sweet and savory because of that cheese and this is very new world because of the tomatoes yeah new world old world thank you thank you okay you can hear my stomach's already crumbling there's something that happens when there's cheese in front of me i just get hungry yeah i'm going to give you a little clue wow police that's not a word that you'd hear often all right spicy first spicy first okay they're definitely untending right you got a good bit of bounce yeah a lot of body there yeah you don't need some gluten formation for sure you don't need a lot of these but i really really really like the tomatoes i gotta say thank you so that tomato sauce is from my first book and in that book i paired it with lobster it's like a lobster pasta super summery and light but who knew works with gnocchi too okay that's really good i like the good amount of heat yeah and now i guess i'm ready for sweet you want to get in there no time like the present yes i guess not okay i want to make sure i get a bit of cheese more dumpling-ish i think it's a sweet spice but i like it it's taking a lot of chewing we didn't know you know but for the first time that was pretty good i do like the cinnamon sugar thing but i don't think i like the gnocchi too like i just i want my tender yeah i have like a lazy modern palette that doesn't want to chew this much that's fair it's kind of reminding me of like a kind of a dense scone like a cheesy biscuit that got overworked right it still tastes good and i think um the chewing like you would have just had a very quiet dinner table because everybody would be chewing just chewing the whole thing which is okay like you need a break yeah yeah sometimes you just don't want to talk and those are the times you make this new case that's right yeah i'm so glad you're able to come this was so fun so fun thank you for having me yeah of course anytime so where can people find you you can find me at youtube.com carlalali music and on patreon.com carla lolly music yeah and if you like this episode what should they do smash that button smash it ring the bell ring the bell like and subscribe like and subscribe for sure definitely be sure to like and subscribe hit me up in the comments if there's any ancient or vintage recipes you want to see me try out and i'll see you next time you

Channel: HISTORY

Views: 157,373

Rating: 4.8836718 out of 5

Keywords: history, history channel, history shows, history channel shows, the history channel, documentary history channel, history documentary, documentary, history channel full episodes, documentaries, history channel documentaries, sohla, sohla el-waylly, ancient recipes, cooking shows, cooking, cooking history, historical cooking, culinary history, recipes, kitchen, bon appetit, binging with babish, how to cook, Carla Lalli Music, Carla and Sohla, gnocchi, Sohla gnocchi, Carla gnocchi

Id: ezDiemfRs8Y

Length: 23min 50sec (1430 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 14 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/bondfool]

Huh! Wouldn't have guessed that Carla is one of the BA people Sohla is still cool with.

[u/SkibumG]

I love Ancient Recipes! I love how Sohla nerds out on the history, it's such a great fit for her.

[u/2dodidoo]

My first thought was "Finally, here's proof that Sohla is still okay with BA folks after that scorched earth event."

[u/agent154]

I just realized that I hadn’t seen sohla on Babish in a while. Did she leave that channel?