Last weekend I made at least 2 pounds of gnocchi. We had lots of potatoes and I wanted to use them up. We are always in need of lunch. Jim’s go-to is frozen tortellini with tomato sauce. I don’t want to change his routine too much so I figured homemade gnocchi is a good replacement. It’s so versatile!
The first time I tried homemade gnocchi was when I visited my sister for the first time in Washington. She made her own pumpkin gnocchi and it was ah-mazing. I’ve been wanting to make my own since. I also wanted to use the rest of the pumpkin we had left over from the Farm to Table dinner. So I found this lovely Pumpkin Gnocchi with Sage and Brown Butter. The pictures are super professional, and so is the gnocchi board she was using so I adapted it for us normal folk.
Let me tell you, gnocchi is hard to make. They’re supposed to turn out as little 1 inch by 1 inch smooth, little pillows of deliciousness, mine turned out looking like dollops of mush but hey…they tasted yummy. And that’s all the matters, right!? I’m not entirely sure why a gnocchi board is important, and/or why the heck gnocchi needs those little lines on it, I’m thinking it has something to do with the way they cook in the water? If anyone knows please let me know! As hard as gnocchi is to make, it’s actually pretty fun. I made a huge mess…as always, sorry Jim! At least I made sure to wear my apron this time!
Quotes from the Farmer
A very filling dish to have on hand and freeze easily. Maybe next year we’ll also be able to get the eggs and potatoes from the garden, but this year it’s just the herbs and the pumpkin.
The dough is pretty easy to make, it comes together pretty well. It’s fun to have the water happily boiling on the stove and while you DELICATELY roll out a little inch snake and CAREFULLY separate the little one inch pillows and SOFTLY plop them into the water to wait while they pop up to the surface when their done.
I’ve come to the conclusion from talking to other people and reading a bunch of different things online that gnocchi is actually pretty adaptable and pretty hard to royally mess up (again if its edible its perfectly fine to me so my standards might be pretty low). It can be made with potato, sweet potato, pumpkin and other ingredients I’m sure. I’m excited to try more. The best thing to is that you make a lot, they freeze well, they keep well and they make you pretty full.
Prep Time: 30-40 minute
yield: 5–6 dozen
Ingredients:
1 cup of pumpkin purée (homemade puree recipe here, make sure it’s not watery!)
1/3 cup of freshly grated parmesan cheese
1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour (plus more, as needed but this was the perfect amount for me)
1 egg yolk
2 tsp coarse smoked sea salt – this was the coolest ingredient I’ve used so far, I found it at Big Y, it was super easy to find, when you finally grind out 2 tsp just take a little whiff, its incredible how you can smell the smokiness!
1/4 tsp Nutmeg
1/4 tsp Cinnamon
1/4 tsp grated fresh or dried Ginger
4 tbsp butter
1/4 cup of dried Rosemary
½ cup crumbled feta
Directions:
Make your pumpkin puree ahead of time and make sure it’s dry enough that it can’t be poured.
Combine the pumpkin, parmesan, egg yolk, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg in a bowl and mix together. Sift in the flour while you mix, if you have a kitchenaid mixer use a low speed and sift it in while its mixing, if you don’t then just shift a little, mix and sift more, unless you’re coordinated enough to do it all at once, if you are – go you!
Prepare a large pot of water on the stove on medium high so it will come to a soft boil –not too crazy of a boil!
The dough will come together into a nice little ball, if its not forming then add a bit more flour. Turn it out on a floured surface and knead just a bit until its smooth and soft. It’ll be pretty sticky.
Chunk off about a small fist size amount and keep the rest in the bowl covered. Roll out the dough into a rope of approximately 1 inch thick then cut the rope into 1 inch pieces. Using a fork flatten the little pieces a tad so there a ridges. While the pieces are being made plop them in the boiling water. Using a slotted spoon remove them and out them on a plate when they rise to the top.
It’s a fun little dance of making the pieces, plopping them in and fishing them out of the water on time. Ok just kidding more like an exercise routine but hey, you’ll be preemptively burning the calories off that you’re going to consume.
Somewhere in the middle of this fun dance/exercise routine prepare a medium/large saucepan over medium heat with the butter in it, let it melt and brown while you’re dancing (cooking) and swirl it a couple times to keep it moving, as soon as it starts browning slightly add the rosemary and gnocchi. Let the gnocchi sizzle in the butter creating lovely light brown sides.
Remove the gnocchi from the pan and top with crumbled just out of the fridge feta and serve.
Prepare to wish there was more, this was absolutely incredible.
Not the cutest things in the world but hey, they’re incredible
