Spicy Beef Gnocchi With Zucchini - First Blue Apron Meal - Chris Plays Gourmet
Channel: Chris Plays Gourmet
Date: 24/01/2019

This was my first experience cooking with Blue Apron, and the meal that I prepared was the Spicy Beef Gnocchi with Zucchini.

This dish was straightforward, and required limited cooking skills. I had to cut up a zucchini and brown it; cut up a couple cloves of garlic; brown some ground beef; drop some pre-made gnocchi in a pot to boil for a couple minutes; and then combine all the ingredients at the end. The result was a dish that felt very similar to an American Chop Suey, replacing elbow macaroni with gnocchi.

A bit contrary to my expectations, the meal kit did not actually include all the ingredients that I needed: neither olive oil nor salt and pepper for seasoning were included. This isn’t actually that big of a deal – during our recent Christmas Eve dinner cooking, we had pulled these out so they were readily available – but I was a bit surprised not to have everything I needed. This is just an adjustment: I think it’s pretty normal to expect that almost any kitchen where someone has pots, pans, bowls, and utensils that they’ll also have oil and salt and pepper, but I did initially look in my kit to find them rather than just on my shelf.

Another thing I’ll have to get used to from Blue Apron is their meaning of items like a “large pan”. In response to that I grabbed our 16” skillet – but it seems that the definition of “large” from Blue Apron tendsd more towards the small side, and I would have been just fine with a 12” skillet. (Better, in fact, when attempting to combine ingredients.) This is a minor adjustment, and is something you’d have to deal with in any cookbook or recipe: “What exactly do these generic sizes mean, anyway?”

One element of cooking I’ll probably have to learn over time is how to check flavor. At several points throughout the dish it suggested adding pepper and salt, and I had absolutely no idea how much to add. When it got to the end of the dish, I was able to taste it and determine that I was way short on both, but earlier on in the process I just had no idea. In the end, I think I hit it about right: there was enough salt and pepper to keep the food flavorful without being overpowering, though I expect I’ll add a bit more in future dishes.

Prep time for me was 30 minutes, on a dish that claimed 25 minutes of prep time. Everything went smoothly, with no unexpected interruptions. I did end up skipping one step in their recipe: They included “as much sambal oelek as you’d like” to provide the spiciness to the dish, and after a brief taste of the ingredient I immediately decided that the right amount for me was “none”. If I had been eating on my own, I might have put in a bit of it, but for my daughter, the spiciness it added would have been way too much.

Once served, my daughter seemed to enjoy the dish! She was surprised by the gnocchi being a bit doughy – I think because I had prepped her for a pasta dish, and she’s not familiar with the gnocchi – but ended up eating all of her serving and a bit more. While I doubt that she’d mark it down as a favorite dish of all time, it was apparently edible and she experienced a new kind of food.

The dish was pretty basic, but tasty, and was a great intro to getting started with integrating cooking into my daily life. I pulled it off, even when life threw me a curve ball, and that’s what this journey is all about.

My opinions are my own and not those of my employer.

#BlueApron #Cooking