Sometimes it’s fun to interject some international foods into your repertoire of lessons even if you don’t teach an international foods class. Doing so gives you the
opportunity to expand the knowledge and tastes of your students who might not otherwise be exposed to these areas and/or foods. Let’s say you’re teaching a lesson on one of the following topics: pasta, potatoes or dumplings…this would be a great time to introduce your students to an Italian food using this Gnocchi Mini-Lesson and Lab.
Set
- Ask students to raise their hands if they’ve ever heard of GNOCCHI. Ask students to raise their hands if they’ve ever eaten GNOCCHI. Ask your students to raise their hands if they’ve ever made GNOCCHI from SCRATCH. The number of hands you see for each question will give you a good idea of their exposure and experience with this food.
- Ask students if gnocchi is a potato or pasta? It’s actually a type of dumpling often categorized with pasta.
- Explain to students that they will be learning more about this unique food before preparing it in the lab.
Materials
- iPads or Laptops
- Projector & Screen
- Colored Markers, Pencils or Sharpies
- Play-doh (optional)
Activities
- Go over the Gnocchi One Pager assignment and resources with students. Give them class time to creatively create a one pager around gnocchi using the provided resources.
- When students are finished with their one pagers, you can go over them as a class by asking students to each share a piece of information they learned from the activity.
- After class sharing, collect the one pagers and hang them on the bulletin board or use them as a wall display outside your door.
- To demontrate how to make the gnocchi from scratch, show students the video portion from The Italian Struggle YouTube video where Chef Frankie describes and demonstrates the process. You only need to show the first part of the video, stopping at the 4:05 mark.
- Prior to actually preparing the dish, you could have students practice the technique using a fork and play-doh, however this is optional. I’ve also included some pre-lab questions to be sure that students not only read the recipe, but understand everything they’ll be doing.
- NOTE: Depending on the length of your class periods, you may have to break this lab into multiple days. Read on and adjust accordingly.
- Prior to the lab, you will need to pre-bake the potatoes and have them cooled and ready to go. One the first day, you can have students make the gnocchi and bake the prosciutto or bacon. Students can mise en place all other ingredients to help speed things up for the next day. NOTE: You can make gnocchi up to 2 days ahead of time. After the pasta has been rolled into little balls and dried for 10-15 minutes, you will need to cover it in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for up to 3 days.
- The next day, have students boil the gnocchi, and prepare the sauce. Garnish with the crispy, crumbled prosciutto or bacan and serve.
Attachments
