Playing with your food is fun. Stuff that turkey with duck. Pour some soda in your cereal. Eat that spaghetti in the tub. Experimentation is one of the joys of cooking. One thing, though: Never, ever fry gnocchi.
Gnocchi, for the uninitiated, are essentially potato dumplings. Sweet, charming Steve of WebstaurantStore, an online kitchen retailer, thought it might be a neat idea to deep fry them and slather them in buffalo sauce. Sure, why not? Well, because the moisture inside the gnocchi paste turns to vapor and builds up inside the little nugget, thus causing them to pop—like, violently pop—like a popcorn kernel on steroids. See the process in action in the below video of Steve’s failed demonstration.
What’s almost as good as the popping gnocchi is Steve’s incredulous reaction. His laughter is clearly born as much out of relief as it is amazement. There’s a moment where you can tell he thinks something very, very bad is about to happen. Maybe Zuul’s living inside his fridge?
This video’s been around since 2010—and Steve even ended up going on Rachael Ray to get a crash course in gnocchi making—but it’s been making the rounds again and we could all use a reminder on how not to kill ourselves in the kitchen.