Difficulty 3/5
First of all, I’m really sorry I haven’t posted any recipes lately, but I was extremely busy on my last term at school. Howeeeever I’m compensating with a really nice recipe. Gnocchi are really nice, agreed? Agreed. And so I bring you my recipe for sweet potato gnocchi, which are not only soft and indulgent as the potato ones, but also they’re nice and sweet. I used yellow sweet potato but you’re welcome to use any type you like :). The sauce is browned butter (“beurre noisette” in nice french) with toasted ground walnuts, chopped black olives, slices of basil and reduced balsamic vinegar… YUM!!!
So the only thing I think you need to be careful with is the amount of flour you add to the gnocchi. You want to add enough so that you can handle it but not so much that when you bite them you only taste flour.
Portions: 4
Ingredients:
For the gnocchi:
– 3 cups sweet potato (for me it was 6 small ones)
– 2 cups of flour (more if needed, but again, be careful) plus more for shaping
– pinch nutmeg
– salt and pepper to taste
– sugar, depending on the sweetness of your sweet potatoes, the idea is that you actually feel sweetness. In my case I added a couple of pinches.
– 1 egg
For the sauce:
– 200g butter
– 50g coarsely ground walnuts
– Salt and pepper
Garnish:
– around 8 big basil leaves (5g)
– 10g olives, pitted
– 200ml balsamic vinegar
– 20g parmesan cheese
Procedure:
1. Roast the sweet potatoes with the skin on in the oven at 220C, then scoop the inside out with a spoon and mas it throughly using a fork, a ricer or whatever you have at hand
2. Then add the egg, flour and seasoning, assessing that the dough should still be sticky but workable. Using flour on your hands and a clean tabletop, shape into a long strip and cut the gnocchi. Then, you can shape them if you want. I used two forks (technique invented by my boyfriend when I left him at it alone for 10min) which actually works quite nicely.
3. Once shaped, they’re ready to be cooked, so prepare a large pot of boiling water and dump them in there before serving them. They take about 2-5min and you know they are done when they float. So as soon as they float, take them out :).
4. Toast the walnuts on a pan or in the oven until nice and golden. Add them to the butter and melt it. Then, keep cooking it so that the milk solids in the butter get brown and turns nutty in colour. The first indication that this is happening is that the sizzling will reduce dramatically. Season.
5. Reduce the balsamic vinegar to a syrup slowly so the edges of your pan don’t burn beyond control with the splatter. Let cool.
6. Prepare your garnishes: cut thinly the basil, chop the olives and cut or use a peeler to get thin slices of parmesan.
And we’re ready!!! Serve pretty and enjoy!!
