Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to Saber production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Annie Reese and I'm Lauren Vocal Bam, and today
we have an episode for you about nilki. Yes, and
I'm already stressed about pronouncing. But I'm going to endeavor
to not let that stress impact the fun that we're
going to have. Yeah, because this is a This is
(00:30):
a delightful episode. Yeah, it is. It is. Is there
any particular reason it was on your mind? I think
niuki are always on my mind, like like that's one
of those baseline like why am I not eating this
right now kind of foods. Maybe I was looking at
a menu and I saw them and I was like,
have we not done that yet? Or I'm not sure?
(00:52):
You know, you never know. It could be any kind
of thing, you know, just walking about as a human
and seeing food. You're like, maybe we should talk about that. Yes, yes, yes, Um.
I actually don't have a lot of experience with miyokium.
Every time I've had it, it's been delicious. I do
think one of the reasons I don't have a lot
of experiences because I didn't know how to pronounce it.
(01:15):
I was like, nope, I'm not going to order that one.
I don't want to make a fool of myself, which
is silly. I should have just asked. People are kind,
but are kind I people are so happy to to share,
especially things about food with with other people. Although there
is I do have that fear of like a server
(01:36):
being like, oh, well, you don't deserve this dish. You
should probably leave. Yeah yeah, um, yeah, I've I've got.
I don't remember a time when I didn't have miilki
in my life. I which I which is probably you know, uh,
(02:01):
factor of having grown up with a with a father
who was a chef or a cooker, you know, however
you want to say it. UM, so very very lucky
in that respect. And it is one of the things
that when I see it on the menu, I am
almost sure to order it. I have made it before
semi successfully. Yeah. Um. In general, anytime you have to
(02:25):
roll a dough into anything, I'm like now, not not
for me, not today, um, but but yeah no I
undertook that one at some point. Yeah. It's so good.
They're so they're so good. They're so good. All right,
craving craving setting in Um. You can see our past
(02:46):
episode we did on fifty shapes of pasta. Have we
done dumplings? I don't think we've done any not really.
I've been avoiding dim sum because it's very it's a
very large broad topic. Um, and I've all so we
did we did parogy, which I suppose is vaguely related. Yeah, sure, yeah,
(03:12):
but right at most of the time, whenever I start
looking into a pasta shape, I'm like, no, nope, yeah,
but here we are, here we are, And I guess
this brings us to our questions, Sure, yolki, what are they? Well?
(03:34):
Nioki are a type of small, generally boiled dumpling about
the size of a knuckle, usually usually served with a
savory sauce, and even as sort of iffy as that was, like,
that is the entire definitive statement that I can give,
because once you get past that, there are just endless
(03:55):
nioki variations. Um Perhaps the most famous type are made
with a dough of white wheat flour and cooked potato.
Your starch base, however, can be a combo of anything
from right flower to summolina, which is pasta flower to
breadcrumbs to corn meal, and can incorporate other products like
(04:16):
nut flowers or cheese, herbs, period vegetables like maybe pumpkin
or spinach, though we could get into semantics about whether
some combinations of the above should be more properly called
other things. Anyway, Um, the resulting dumpling should be pillowy
and sort of sort of melting in your mouth. But
(04:38):
on that range of pillowy, it can be anything from
airy to two pretty toothsome um. Like you know, some
pillows are supportive right right. Other pillows not so much
are not They're not there for you in your time
of need. Um, the us can be anything that kind
(05:02):
of sticks to and plays up the gentle textures and
flavors of the nioki themselves. Um, they're like, uh, they're
sort of ethereal or or ephemeral, but also really stick
to your ribs and comforting. Um. Eating nioki is like
hearing a good story. M hmm, I want it now.
(05:27):
Lauren Hard, same Anny Hard, same Okay. The ingredients and
methods that you use in making yoki are going to
uh greatly affect your your outcome, and people are after
different effects, perhaps obviously like a like a nyiolko, which
(05:48):
is the singular um made with a large percentage of potato,
is going to be different from one made with a
bunch of corn meal or ricotta cheese. And just as
people enjoy pasta cooked two different temperatures, from al dente
to soft, people enjoy niolki in different ways. That said,
what you're looking to avoid in a dish of nioki
(06:11):
is gumminess like chewy is okay, but you don't want
them to be sticky and dense. That's not that's not good. Okay, okay, okay,
so so so Basically, what you're looking at doing to
make nioki is to create a dough that's just moist
enough and just worked enough to hold together, like a
(06:34):
fairly dry and gently handled dough. Um And considering that
you're sometimes working with like moisture laden ingredients like potatoes
or vegetables, or a fresh cheese like ricotta, that means
that you're gonna want to either cook or drain some
of the moisture out of those ingredients before adding them
to your dry starches, your your flour, or whatever. So
(06:57):
like a bake your potatoes or your solid vegetables, a
drain your ricotta or cooked spinach. If you're doing a
potato or vegetable, you'll want to rice or pure that
in order to get the get the texture nice and
even um. You then add that to your dry starch,
maybe add some egg yolk for cohesion, maybe add some seasoning,
(07:18):
and then mix or hand kneed to combine into a
dough again gently. You're not looking to develop gluten's as
in bread doughs. Just just combine. Don't like press and
pollen stretch. Yeah. You then hand roll the dough out
into a snake cut cross wise and dumplings about the
size of a finger knuckle. Sometimes at this point, each
(07:39):
nielko is a roll gently against a fork or a
specialty surface, or just with your thumb to create little
grooves or a dip in the dumpling. Then uh, you
boil them until they float like the tasty little clouds
that they are. M m um and a quick science
note here. The reason that niolki and similar dumplings float
(08:05):
in boiling water when they're cooked is that, uh, well, okay,
a couple of things are going on. Um. First, the
heat and the access to water molecules will make some
of the starches in your dough gelatinize um from the
outside of the dumpling in and that means that the
starches are are loosening up and glomming onto moisture and
(08:27):
then setting in that new form. Uh. We talked about
this recently in the Injera episode um as a process
that helps make the finished product puffy and chewy. Right. Uh. Meanwhile,
while the gelatinization process is going on, as the rest
of the dumpling cooks, some of what little moisture is
(08:49):
in there is going to evaporate, leaving an air bubble
in the dough as it sets. So they puff up
and expand a little um in their density dust decreases,
and so they float. Yes, oh heck um Okay. Once
(09:10):
they're cooked, you might additionally pan fry then yoki briefly
to to brown them or not. I can't tell you
what to do. Um. And then time for sauce. Yes, uh.
Simple versions of sauces could just be like melted butter
with some parmesan grated over top. Um, a little bit
of a little bit of pepper, or maybe some browned
butter with a fried sage leaves or or some thyme
(09:33):
in there. Yeah m hm. You can do a herbal
savory pesto or bright tomato sauce, or like an earthy
mushroom sauce or a rich cream or cheese sauce. You
can add cooked vegetables maybe like fresh peas or crumbles
of sausage or garnish with melty cheese, and run the
whole thing under a broiler. Oh gosh, yeah yeah. U
(10:00):
Yoki is traditionally served as a first course of a dinner,
but modernly maybe um, a side dish or your main starch.
And I've also read that you can do a dessert
yoki with like a with like a simple sauce of butter, cinnamon,
and sugar. But I've also read that that's considered very
old fashioned. Huh yeah, so listeners right in. Yes. Uh.
(10:28):
And there are regional variations on yoki that are made
lots of different ways, um, like and and and deviating
from this basic recipe. Like you can cook a corn
meal or semolina with milk and combine that with stuff
to make a dough, slice it into rounds or squares,
and then bake it in order to puff it up,
sometimes called a polenta or write a semolina yoki. Um.
(10:51):
There are regional variations that come with different names, uh,
like that ricotta based yoki maybe called neady. Um. It
is a wide and yoki world out there, y'all. Yes, yes,
And of course these days you can get them in
stores sold either fresh in with the refrigerated pastas or frozen.
(11:14):
In the United States, have only ever seen them frozen
in like those like bagged meals, you know that come
with the little pucks of sauce that you put in
a skillet and I'll cook up together. Yeah, but I'm
pretty okay, I don't know um or shelf stable uh,
along with the dried pastas, which I personally do not recommend.
(11:34):
Just the texture always comes out gummy, and I'm like,
this is what I wanted from yogi. What when you
ventured into making yoki? Can you explain the process for
what were what we're going for? I was going for
a potato yoki um with right, just a just a
sage brown butter sauce and so uh, I like them.
(11:58):
I've had them quite light and airy, and I like
them a little bit denser than that, but but not
like muddy right, So somewhere in between um and right.
It's it's really about just getting just the right amount
of of of of gluten and gelatinization going. I don't know.
I don't know. Okay, Well, what about the nutrition? Uh?
(12:26):
It really depends. Uh. You know, these are perhaps obviously
often heavy on starches and fats. You know, eat a
eat a protein and a vegetable. If you want to
consider this a treat, Oh, what a treat it is?
What a treat it is? Oh? My goodness. Uh. And
(12:46):
we do have some numbers for you, numbers and or
cultural notes. Sure, yes, indeed, just starting with one of
my very favorite wores. Okay. So apparently in Verona, Italy,
they have Yoki Friday. Uh, and it takes place the
final Friday before land. I've heard there is a father
(13:07):
of Nyoki that parades through with a giant golden fork
piercing and Yoko, the election of which has gotten pretty political. Okay, listeners,
please write in, Please write in yeah the pictures I
saw word Yeah. So so this is uh, this this character,
(13:29):
I guess or this elected official of sorts? Um is
uh Papa del Nyoko? Uh looks like Santa reigns with Nyoki.
I don't know. Um like, yes, he is elected by
the locals. There are often long lines to the polls
of thirty minutes or more in order to to to
to cast your vote. And this day of the Verona
(13:53):
Carnival Festival is sometimes called the Buccanal del Yoko. Oh
my gosh, I love it, yes, yes, um okay, world records.
I could not figure out the result of the world
(14:14):
record attempts for longest nioko before cutting, but I read
about a couple attempts. Um. There was one in Croatia
in two thousand eleven attempted length unknown, and there was
one in Italy, and the goal there was to make
and nioko over six dreds long before slicing. Oh my goodness. Yeah,
(14:43):
uh that's like that's like a little over a third
of a mile. Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh. Ah yep, yep.
Now I'm wondering, okay, if there's any horror movies specifically
about a food record I talked about in the bay.
(15:05):
There is a scene of all you can eat contests
that goes wrong. But I wonder if there's one about,
like specifically you're trying to beat a food record. And
because I don't know something about how that's read like
links unknown, I don't know to be I been watching
(15:29):
too many horror movies. Annie, that's fair that's true. Still
still um and apparently there's a day of the Nioki
in Argentina. Um again, listeners, please right in. But there
(15:51):
are fans, that's what we can say. Yes, uh and
there have long been fans, as we'll get into in
the history section. Oh yes, But first we've got a
quick break for a word from our sponsors, and we're back.
(16:13):
Thank you, yes, thank you, And we're back with a
fun with Italian pronunciation for me. Oh yeah, sucker. So
it's gonna be fine. It's gonna be fine for everyone
who isn't Italian and for people who are Italian. I
apologize in advance. We're gonna do our best, but it's
(16:36):
gonna be tricky. Um. Yes, thank you Lord for support
means so much, of course, thank you. Uh. So we've
said it before, say it again. Dumplings similar to njoki
have existed for a long time. Um, And it's almost
(16:58):
impossible to isolate the influence that these different types of
dumplings have had on each other. Many of them are
very different, but with key similarities based on local ingredients
and cooking techniques. So basically like oh, just the scope
of talking about dumplings stressful to think about it is
(17:21):
it is, this is right. This is why we haven't
done more dumpling episodes because right, like they're so cool
but also like so incredibly local and people and they
were often um uh not as celebrated they were. They
were often a more shall we say, rustic application of
ingredients and so therefore they weren't like waxed poetic about
(17:44):
like like asparagus or whatever. So just like oh that
that's a dumpling. Yeah cool, moving on, um, Yeah, which
is a shame. They should have been wax poetic about,
right they have. Yeah, they've long been something kind of
a staple food that will hold, believe, fill you up
with ingredients in a way to stretch your starches. Sure,
(18:05):
exactly exactly. But that's not to say there aren't quote
unquote more expensive variations, some of which we might be
talking about. Yeah, yes, exactly exactly. And as many things
we like to talk about, people love to fight about
who gets the claim on yoki um. But while northern
(18:28):
Italy often gets the credit, often wants the credit. Most
historians think that many versions of this have proliferated around
the same time across the country. Uh, and that similar
dishes existed around the world. So again I'm like the
(18:48):
stress is probably palpable through the audio wavelengths. But but yeah,
there were a lot of things at the same time
that were similar this particular version. Yes, maybe specific to
northern Italy, maybe not have been, but northern Italy is
classically what we think about when we think about this
(19:09):
specific type of potato and yoki in particular, UM, and
this specific type of potato and yoki U traces back
to at least the sixteenth or seventeenth century, after the
Spanish had brought back potatoes from the Americas and introduced
them to Italy. And potatoes is also an episode that
we put off forever but have danced around. But yeah,
(19:34):
as we briefly discussed in past episodes around things like
Latka's and French fries, potatoes were not always seen in
the best light at first in Europe. UM, so that
there's a lot of academic discussion around that and why
maybe the nioki got picked up in northern Italy when
it did, the potato nioke specifically when the rest of
(19:56):
Europe seemed to kind of look down on it. Something
to keep in mind. UM. However, its predecessors go back
even further, as far back as the Renaissance, at least,
when a yoki like dumpling of ground almonds, bread and
milk grace the tables at banquets. Famous Italian Renaissance chef
Bartolomeo Scopi had a recipe for nocchi or what we
(20:18):
would probably consider no chi, which basically called for a
dough of water, bread crumbs, and flour pushed through a
cheese grater. I love it. I love you can get
really creative with a cheese grater. I've actually um. A
little bit later, the recipe changed, calling for egg, flour
(20:39):
and water, and this was called malfatti are badly made,
which is funny given the current popular drink that's going
around around House of the Dragon. I just did an
episode on that and spintee, oh that's fabulous, yes yes,
yes uh and the rona specifically based yoki of potato
(21:02):
nyoki served with a sauce which is nowadays frequently tomato sauce,
which is interesting given our episode on tomatoes and when
they came to Europe, but more modernly with tomato sauce
has an association with Carnival that goes back to the
fifteen hundreds. According to one source, this is likely because
of a famine in the area, and because of this
(21:23):
rich folks decided to hand out flour to the poor,
which doesn't track with much history for me. But hey,
that's what I read. Yeah, I read in a couple
of places, Um, that we're talking about the day of
the Nioki in the Verona Carnival, the whole Pama dell Nyoko.
That that whole thing that right, there was this famine
(21:46):
in the area, and that maybe one noble dude or
maybe a few of them got together and we're like, well,
so that the peasants do not revolt, let us give
them dumplings, and you know, like it's leading up to lent, like,
let's do this nice thing, uh, and also avoid a revolt. Um.
But right, I I'm not I'm not sure about the
(22:08):
absolute veracity of that. Yes, And another thing that came
up in that whole conversation that I thought was funny,
and I was also kind of like, huh, um, is
that one of these rich folks added a line in
his will that each year his wealth should in part
be used to distribute flower. Uh. Potatoes were not involved
(22:29):
at the time in this whole Nioki thing. Um. I
only found that in a few places a grain of salt,
but I thought that was interesting. Yeah yeah, mm hmmm uh.
Some historians even posit that what is essentially gnocchi goes
back to ancient Rome, and that it is in fact
(22:50):
older than pasta, and that this iteration may have evolved
from a Middle Eastern dish. Uh. This is largely based
on a recipe from the Epicius from the century CE,
which called for simolina, flour, honey, black pepper, and water
or milk. So not quite what we would think of
today as nioki, but close close. Yeah um. And this
(23:12):
also ties into discussions about where exactly pasta is from
in the history. So yeah, a whole other, whole other
episode um. At any rate, wherever and whenever the dish
nioki was invented. The word roots from nyoko, meaning a
protuberance um, which is related to nocchio meaning a not
(23:38):
in wood, which is where we get Pinocchio from. Yeah. Yeah,
Pinocchio not written until the eighteen eighties. By the way,
I didn't know that neither. Learning something new every day,
every every food episode a completely random fact that we
(23:58):
were not anticipating and yet here we are. As people
grew more confident making yoki, all kinds of ingredients ended
up in the mix, varying based on region and what
was available. There's also a version from France Joki a
la Parisian uh, and the dough is a mixture of eggs,
hot water, and flour and it originated around the same time.
(24:21):
I believe in This one also comes up of like,
when we're talking about where yoki comes from, we have
to talk about this one. So yeah, yeah, right, okay,
So so Nioki alla Parisian is made from shoe pastry. Um,
not like the footwear like h o u x which
(24:42):
which is a hot water dough that's used to make
everything from Claire's two Bignets to other regional dishes like
I like churos right. Um. And it's really hard to
pin down, but cooks and bakers were making shoe pastry
by the mid fifteen undreds, and you know, if they
saw people making dumplings in the style with other stuff,
(25:05):
it kind of makes sense that they would go, oh yeah,
I'll just put my piping bag over a pot of
boiling water and slice some little dumplings into it and
make a similar type of dumpling that sounds delicious. Let's
do it. It does sound delicious. Uh. Pellegrino Artusi, often
called the grandfather of Italian cuisine, publish a recipe for
potato and nioki in the nineteenth century that is in
(25:28):
line with what we would see today. His recipe also
came with the story of an Italian woman whose nioki
disappeared when she was boiling them because she didn't use
enough flower um and his recipe called for creating these
pinky sized pieces of dough, rolling them against a cheese
grater for shape. And the story of the like disappearing
(25:50):
when boiling like persist today. It's it's it's real that well,
I mean, they won't totally disappear, They're not gonna poof,
but but they will just dissolve into your boiling water
if you if you don't work them just enough or
have just enough I mean, and that's also part of why, um,
it's an easy fix to add some egg yoke in
(26:12):
there to help bind it. So yeah, I feel like
this episode has so many like just rights involved, like
just enough right, Oh, yeah, it is. It is a
delicate thing, and I if you're trying to make them
make them at home. I highly recommend looking at a recipe.
Serious Seats has a great one as part the usual
(26:32):
okay okay uh. A wave of Italian immigrants to Argentina
introduced yoki in the nineteenth century. Um, the word njoki
apparently entered the English written record in the eighteen nineties. Also,
right around the turn of the twentieth century, countertop machines
(26:53):
to roll and or cut nioki at home hit the
market in Italy. Yeah, save a little bit of labor, Yeah, okay.
And then jumping ahead in Lipton Company patented a method
of producing extruded dried nioki here in the United States. Um,
(27:18):
that's the earliest patent I could find for such a thing.
But I was only looking in the American record, so
who knows? Who knows? Not? In Trader Joe's introduced their
now very popular califlower califlower cauliflower. I struggled with this
(27:38):
in her episode Cauliflower Yolki, which a lot of people
brought up and they were like, Um, I've never had it,
but yeah, I seem to love it. I shouldn't really
eat cauliflower, it's sort of It's one of those sort
of bothers my stomach. So yeah, it's okay. Potatoes are fine.
(27:59):
I'm fine with just eat potatoes. I'm not bothered. Yeah,
it's true, it's true. Uh, well, I would love to
know people's thoughts on all of these different types of nyokis.
If you guys recipes, oh my god, if your grandmama
(28:19):
made them, you know, if you make them, if you
have strong preferences as as you all know, we love
a strong preference, um, which we've if we've been pronouncing
everything wrong. Oh I've been pronouncing everything wrong. Uh leaved
be nice to Annie. She's a sensitive yeah, yeah, because I,
(28:47):
like I said, I don't have much experience with it,
but I'm looking to change that. Yeah. Yeah, my stomach
is hungry for yeah. Oh oh yes, well, um, I
think that that is all that we have to say
about Nyoki for now, But we do have some listener
mail for you. We do, and we'll get into that
(29:09):
after one more quick break for a word from our
sponsored and we're back. Thank you, sponsorous, Yes, thank you,
And we're back with listener man like a pillow. We hug. Yeah, sorry,
(29:35):
imagine Yoki o'kay some soon and I'll be able to
confirm whether or not this was a good listener mail
jingle or not. Absolutely absolutely, okay, okay, all right, um,
John wrote, I haven't written to you folks since the
Rice episodes original publication. I sent in a correction on
(29:57):
the map, and I was quite excited when my missive
was on a podcast for the first and up until
now only time. I'm writing because as you were discussing
the possibility that someone somewhere must have tried to make
these recipes, I was thinking of one example where several
of them were made and eaten in a single video.
So these recipes being uh Stephen Universe UM. On the
(30:19):
React Channels subchannel People Versus Food, they have an episode
titled Try Not to Eat Challenge Stephen Universe Food, where
people are presented with many of the foods you discussed,
but they have to resist eating the foods or they
will be punished. Basically, they have to eat one bite
of something yucky from the cartoon for each thing they
(30:41):
try during the video, but if they refuse to be
tempted by all the foods presented, they are rewarded with
a fantabulous food from the series. There's also another episode
which covers assorted cartoon network shows mixed together, including something
from Stephen Universe among the others. But wait, they have
episodes covering lots of anime cartoons, from SpongeBob to Dragon
(31:01):
ball Z, Scooby Doo, Studio, Ghibli, The Simpsons, Pokemon, and yes,
even Bob's Burgers. There are two Harry Potter food episodes
and many more. But I'll let you go down that
rabbit hole on your own together. And then John followed
up and told me there's some Star Wars perfect what
a good follow up? Yeah, yes, yes, I find this
(31:24):
really fascinating. Like I think something would have to look
really tempting, honestly for me to not be able to
resist eating it. Yeah, and I'm not really deterred by
eating like yucky things, so I mean it would depend
on I mean basically, if something isn't going to poison me,
I'm like, yeah, sure, I'll try that totally. Why not. Yeah,
(31:46):
we would just be like, yeah, let me have some
of that. Yeah, yeah, that's fine, one of each. Please. Thanks.
I'm glad you're essentially paying for me to eat all this. Yeah,
but it's cool, that's cool. Um. John told me they're
always looking for personalities, and I guess we are personalities
(32:08):
in one way or another. We certainly or another. Yeah, alright, alright, UM,
try to react channels people versus food, get have your people,
get in touch with just us. We don't have people,
we were, We are our own people. That's it. Um.
(32:28):
Trevor wrote, Joanne Fabrics is a local craft chain. I'm
just not sure how far their region extends. I saw
a Star Wars cookbook there previously. It had recipes to
celebrate Life Day. The recipes looked solid, but the puns
weren't good enough to force me to share. M I've
been enjoying your show since the food stuff days, looking
forward to more episodes and puns and news of your
(32:51):
ongoing dand campaign adventures and misadventures um and attached as
a photograph of the cover of the of of the
book UM and it's it right is It's It's called
Star Wars inspired Book of Cocktails and the cover image
UM is a coope glass UH with a green drink
(33:13):
of some kind in it, with little lime wedges forming
ears on either side, and a little a little cocktail
pick with what looks like maybe blueberries strung across it
to look like eyeballs at the top of the head.
This is that is now this coop glass um and
then it's got a little, a little wee Jedi robe
(33:33):
wrapped around the stem of the glass. So it's a
little Yoda. It's Yoda. It's cute. It's real cute. You guys. Oh,
that's very adorable. Difficult to drink, I'm sure, but very adorable. Yeah.
I fear cook glasses. The curse of the coop glasses
haunts me to this. They're so pretty and I'm just
(33:56):
so clumsy, exactly exact clee I do now. I feel
like this is a challenge to make. I mean, I
can do it. We all know better Star Wars puns. Yeah, okay,
all right, but yeah, that twitt twist your arm, I'm sure.
I mean I could sense the call and inside this email,
(34:17):
I know what it is. It's a setting, the dat
of a trap to get me to make a bunch
of Star Wars puns. I'll do it. Excellent, excellent, well,
coming up, yeah, like day, coming up. Success all around. Yes,
thank you to both of these listeners for writing in.
If you would like to write to us, you can.
(34:38):
Our email is Hello at saber Pod dot com. We
are also on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at Saber pod and we do hope to
hear from you. Saber is production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can visit
the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our
superproducers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
(35:01):
and we hope that lot's more good things are coming
your way. H