Moreovers: Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Sage Butter Sauce
Posted on | January 13, 2009 | 2 Comments
Sweet potato adds a nice twist to an old favorite
This time of year, the local organic delivery service brings a predictable bounty: squash, apples, squash, sweet potatoes, squash, kale, Squash, SWEET POTATOES – AHHH!
I’m not one to complain, because eating locally and seasonally is important. It’s just that in the middle of winter, one starts to run out of ideas for how to create new flavors and dishes out of the same ole’ ingredients.
Why moreovers: because they aren’t leftover from anything: I simply have more of them than I need.
Finding myself with an abundance of sweet potatoes, a baked off 5 or 6, ate a few with dinner and pondered what to do with the rest. The result, sweet potato gnocchi. I’d never made gnocchi before, so I’m not sure what caused me to venture into these tenuous waters with sweets. The process was somewhat arduous. However, the end result was rewarding: It made me feel as though I’d broken through a barrier of sweet potato and squash dishes. It’s also encouraged me to be a lot more adventurous with these ingredients in the future (though, let’s face it, I’m a bit impatient for spring’s bounty).
For those of you who’ve made Gnocchi before and feel comfortable with the ratios, you’ll know how best to proceed for the Gnocchi you prefer.
Here are a few great links with instructions for pulling together Potato Gnocchi:
Anna Maria Volpi’s fabulous pictorial Gnocchi Recipe
My recipe is as follows:
Scoop out the flesh from 4-5 medium sized sweet potatoes
Puree the flesh in a food processor to establish a base consistency. Above is a picture of my blended sweets prior to adding the other ingredients.
Place in a bowl and add 1.5 cups of flour, 1 egg (beaten) and 1 cup of Parmesan cheese. Don’t forget Mrs S. and Mr. P.
Mix together until it starts to become a dough (this can be quite messy…just warning you). Once the “dough” has come together, put a sheet of parchment down on a cutting board and on a flat cookie sheet. Sprinkle some flour on each.
Remove a palm-sized ball of dough from the mixture and roll it out on the floured cookie sheet by hand, until it starts to take the shape of a long, thin, baton. When its approximately the size of your index finger, begin to cut into half inch pieces with a knife. Now, one of the common methods for shaping gnocchi involves rolling the small pieces over the tines of a fork. I had no patience for this. I gave each piece a quick roll in my hand, dropped onto the floured sheet and pressed lightly into the center with my thumb.
After I’d filled the tray with gnocchi, I covered them with plastic wrap and put them into the fridge for a few hours. Don’t know why. I just did.
Boil water with salt. Cook gnocchi about 7 minutes. They’ll start to float on the top, at which time i gave them a couple more minutes. Turned out it was 7 in total.
While they’re in the pot, boiling away, add a half a stick of butter, a half a cup of chicken stock, white pepper and a glug of wine to the pan. Cook down until the sauce starts to bubble and reduce. Then, add your pieces of sage, probably 8-10 sprigs, torn and bruised, to the pan.
Cook on medium until you smell the sage and the mixture starts to brown. This should coincide with the finished gnocchi. Drain the little suckers, but reserve some water for the butter sauce.
Add your gnocchi and a half a ladle of the pasta water to the pan and cook on hight until the mixture begins to thicken.
Plate, add a few of the moreover pieces of fresh sage and the remainder of the parm (less, of course, if it’s only you). It should look roughly like the photo above (which look different from each other because I’m still messing around with the best indoor settings on my camera. It’s a never-ending struggle).
This recipe isn’t perfect. If you have one using sweet potatoes that you prefer, I’d love to hear about it.
More later,
Will
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2 Responses to “Moreovers: Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Sage Butter Sauce”
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January 14th, 2009 @ 12:22 am
Moreovers? Brilliant concept, I love it!
Never tried (or, in fact, even thought much) about making my own gnocchi, so I can’t offer any insights, but what you’ve described there sounds pretty good to me
January 18th, 2009 @ 4:40 am
I think these sound really good. To keep the texture nice and light, I’d probably stay away from the food processor. This is how they did it at the restaurants I worked at:
Dump baked potato flesh out on big old work surface. Sprinkle on some flour, salt and egg yolk. Then, cut everything together with two bench knives–a very loud and satisfying process. This method yields a light texture because you’re not bashing the flour around in a food processor and stirring up gluten.
The sauce sounds really good, and the dish looks great on the plate (I rhymed. Yay!) Perhaps there is gnocchi in my futures. Near future! Thanks for the inspiration:)