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Twice cooked yams that have soaked up decadent amounts of chicken fat and pineapple juice are quite an ingredient to contemplate. Initial ideas didn't pan out ( rim shot ); so I thought I'd record the evolution of the dish.
First idea was to cook a dough in a cast iron pan to get a nice crust, like a good corn bread. I already knew there's not enough flour and oil in the world to make that release. Next thought was gnocchi, which sounded perfect.
Sweet potato pineapple gnocchi sounded a little like a Martha Stuart segment, but what the hell. Unfortunately, the couple cups of flour I'd allotted was slurped up before I reached any kind of dough like consistency. But I was close and it had an egg for insurance, so I decided to go for it.
I wasn't close enough. The recipe then shifted from le petite gnocchi to the more rustic drop dumplings, which are also good. Sadly, I still didn't have enough flour or one of my other ingredients queered the mix... we had, not quite dumplings. At this point I should probably have given up, but that would be too easy.
They did have some structural integrity. If I could just get just get to outside to contain the inside we'd have something. Enter baking sheet, 375 degrees, sprinkle a little sugar on them. Alas, it's too wet for an egg wash.
The final product looks a little like a biscuit type thing with a creamy inside. It's also impossible to release cleanly from the baking sheet. Strangely enough, as I work them off they tend to collapse around the bottom, forming an elongated, consistently textured shape.
The final product is arrayed around the edge of the plate, crowning a pineapple teriyaki chicken quite well. It looks amazingly intentional. The lesson in all this...
Never admit defeat, salvage what you can and go another direction. If you reach the end of the endeavor unscathed, you can claim you meant to do that all along.
First idea was to cook a dough in a cast iron pan to get a nice crust, like a good corn bread. I already knew there's not enough flour and oil in the world to make that release. Next thought was gnocchi, which sounded perfect.
Sweet potato pineapple gnocchi sounded a little like a Martha Stuart segment, but what the hell. Unfortunately, the couple cups of flour I'd allotted was slurped up before I reached any kind of dough like consistency. But I was close and it had an egg for insurance, so I decided to go for it.
I wasn't close enough. The recipe then shifted from le petite gnocchi to the more rustic drop dumplings, which are also good. Sadly, I still didn't have enough flour or one of my other ingredients queered the mix... we had, not quite dumplings. At this point I should probably have given up, but that would be too easy.
They did have some structural integrity. If I could just get just get to outside to contain the inside we'd have something. Enter baking sheet, 375 degrees, sprinkle a little sugar on them. Alas, it's too wet for an egg wash.
The final product looks a little like a biscuit type thing with a creamy inside. It's also impossible to release cleanly from the baking sheet. Strangely enough, as I work them off they tend to collapse around the bottom, forming an elongated, consistently textured shape.
The final product is arrayed around the edge of the plate, crowning a pineapple teriyaki chicken quite well. It looks amazingly intentional. The lesson in all this...
Never admit defeat, salvage what you can and go another direction. If you reach the end of the endeavor unscathed, you can claim you meant to do that all along.