Lamb & Gnocchi

Module 5: Week of September 14-20, 2025

Introductions

This week in lab, we are going to be making fresh gnocchi and roasting racks of lamb, along with preparing a simple creamed corn bisque, some parmesan risotto, vegetables, and a jus for the lamb.

Lamb happens to be one of my more favorite meats, so I am very excited to be learning more about how to butcher pieces of lamb, and techniques for preparing delicious racks of lamb.

I love making fresh pasta, but have never gotten around to making gnocchi dough, so I am eager to try-out this dough and roll out the gnocchi. I would love to lean in to either a pomodoro-based sauce for the gnocchi, or lean in to a sage butter situation.

Some goals I have for this week are to pay attention to the research into my recipes, dive more into different plating methods, and to be more efficient in my time management while in lab.

Background Information

Lamb is a peculiar cut of meat, seemingly similar to beef, but it has some different quirks that separate it from its beef counterpart. Lamb has a much more earthier taste to it, while beef has a very classic savory and umami taste with less marbling as compared to lamb. However, similar to beef, fattier cuts should be roasted slowly at low temperatures, while leaner cuts of lamb should be cooked at high temperatures, and then finished slowly at low temps. Braising is very popular for many fattier cuts of lamb, as it breaks down the fat and the tendons of the lamb (Central Grazing Company n.d.).

While researching gnocchi, the consensus among most is that while gnocchi is easy to whip up in most scenarios, it is also just as easy to ruin gnocchi as well. I found an interesting article that listed 15 common mistakes made by cooks when preparing gnocchi. The big mistakes that stood out to me were choosing the wrong potatoes, overworking the dough, always using eggs, pairing with odd sauces, or drowning in sauce (Klimek 2022). As I go into this lab, I want to make sure I pay attention to how the dough is prepared since we will be making a batch as a class as part of a demo. Then I was to pay attention to how I roll them, boil/sear them, and how I pair them with a sauce. I plan on making a pomodoro sauce to pair with the gnocchi, which I will also be sure to not drown the gnocchi in.

Recipe Research & Development

Since all of the recipes were provided to us, I did not have to find any completely new recipes for any of the dishes this week. However, I have researched some different variations on how to play around with the recipes.

For the Corn Bisque, I would love to implement some sort of pepper into the bisque, to give it some heat and maybe even a pop of color.

I would love to add some lavender from the rooftop into the lamb, and possibly even into the parmesan risotto to add some earthy flavors to those two dishes. I would also love to add an abundance of herbs to the risotto (like pictured below) to add a pop of color to contrast with the dark rack of lamb.