When I initially wrote this recipe, I wanted to make a kimchi-bacon bolognese for a tagliatelle or pappardelle pasta. Basically, I envisioned long noodles with this hearty meat sauce. I was inspired by these Asian-fusion pasta dishes that you could find in a cafe in Japan or Korea, and that was what I intended when I came up with the sauce recipe, since there are mild influences of Korean and Japanese cuisine by way of kimchi and cooking sake. The sauce itself did come out exactly how I wanted it to, but then with the pasta, I took a different route than noodles. I had a bunch of potatoes I needed to use up, so I figured, let’s make potato pasta, more specifically, gnocchi. Gnocchi is a type of pillowy-light, unfilled dumpling, made usually from potatoes, but it can also be made from various root vegetables, ricotta cheese, or even pate choux(this is called Parisian gnocchi). Truthfully, I have not made potato gnocchi since college, but it just made sense to go that route since I had about 5 russet potatoes lying around, and I needed to find ways to use those before the potatoes started sprouting. Unlike the pate choux or ricotta gnocchi, potato. gnocchi takes a bit of time. You have to cook the potatoes first, then rice them, mix that with flour, cheese, and egg, shape the dough into little dumplings, and then boil them again. And that’s not even factoring in the sauce. So this recipe, allocate at least 2 hours towards making it in total. Also, apparently the 29th of each month of traditionally the day you are supposed to eat gnocchi, so I was delighted to post this on the 29th of this month, just to celebrate that little fact!

When it comes to the sauce, it is somewhat close to a classic bolognese, but with a few alterations. I started with an almost classic mirepoix(carrots, onions, and celery), but I subbed out the celery with cabbage kimchi, which provides a similar kind of umami to celery, but with a more intense fermented funkiness that gives the sauce a more savory flavor. I also use the kimchi liquid to add a little more of that umami background, along with cooking sake instead of wine, because the sake adds a nice sweetness to the sauce, rounding it out further. The ground beef is cooked with bacon fat, and then the ground beef, along with rendered bacon, is added and braised in the sauce to give it that bolognese feel. You are free to sub out the ground beef with ground pork or lamb, but I chose beef simply because I had a lot of ground beef and I needed to use it up. With the gnocchi, I did boil my potatoes to cook them. I know a lot of recipes vary for this, and the most consistent way to cook potatoes for gnocchi is actually roasting them whole in the oven – this yields super light and fluffy potatoes. But I was trying to make dinner within a reasonable time frame, so boiling them just made the process a lot faster. I recommend after straining the potatoes out of the water to let them sit at room temperature for a few minutes, just to let the excess moisture come out before you make the gnocchi dough. So long as you do that, you won’t run the risk of overworking or over-flouring your dough and ending up with gummy or hard gnocchi. All in all, this dish is a labor of love, but I am glad that it all finally came together, since this was on my to-make list for a hot minute.

Makes 3-4 servings:
For the bolognese:
2oz olive oil
1 onion, peeled and diced finely
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 carrot, peeled and cut to small dice
4oz cabbage kimchi, minced finely
1 bay leaf
salt
.5oz tomato puree
.25oz Calabrian chilies
1oz cooking sake; can substitute with cooking wine
1oz kimchi liquid
8oz canned crushed tomatoes
8oz beef stock
1oz parmesan cheese
6 strips bacon, diced
16oz ground beef
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried thyme

In a large pot, start by sweating out the onions, garlic, carrots, cabbage kimchi, and bay leaf in the olive oil with a pinch of salt. To that, stir in the tomato puree and Calabrian chilies first, continuing to stir everything until the onions are translucent. To that, add the kimchi liquid, crushed tomatoes, beef stock, and parmesan cheese. Cover the pot and continue cooking the liquid on low heat for 10-15 minutes; you want the carrots to be completely soft. Puree the contents of the pot until everything is blended together. Keep the sauce in a pot on low heat, uncovered, stirring occasionally to prevent the sauce from burning on the bottom of the pot. In another pan, render out the bacon until crispy on low heat. Mix the beef with the other seasonings plus a generous pinch of salt and then stir-fry the beef in the pan with the rendered bacon fat until the meat is cooked and split into smaller pieces. Transfer the beef and bacon to the pot with the tomato sauce, and allow the beef to cook down in the tomato sauce, covered, for another 15-25 minutes, minimum.

For the potato gnocchi:
3 russet potatoes, peeled and cut to medium dice
90g all-purpose flour
5g grated parmesan cheese
a pinch of salt
1 whole egg

In heavily salted boiling water, boil the potatoes for 5-6 minutes, or until fork tender. Drain the potatoes, allowing them to sit out of the water for 3-4 minutes, before passing them through a ricer – you want roughly 360g of riced potatoes. Mix with the potatoes the flour, cheese, and salt first, then form a well. Beat up an egg with a fork and mix that into the potato-flour mixture until just combined to form your dough, shaping it into a 6 inch by 6 inch square. Cut the dough into 1/4 inch by 1/4 inch squares. Using a prongs on a fork or a gnocchi board, roll the squares to form a curled cylindrical shape with a ridged exterior. When ready to eat, boil the gnocchi again in heavily salted water for 2-3 minutes, or until they begin to float. Toss the gnocchi in the sauce.

To serve:
Grated parmesan cheese