I had never had gnocchi until my brother introduced me to it one night when he took my parent's and I out for tapas over his wedding weekend a year and a half ago. We had an amazing time trying all sorts of new and exciting foods that night and gnocchi just happened to be one of them. I never knew what a gnocchi even was until that night. Turns out it is a cute little pasta-like dumpling made out of potatoes, and apparently, doing a very, very small amount of research on wiki-pedia, can be made out of many other things as well but I won't be getting into all that. If you are curious, you may do your own bit of research!
I never in a million years thought I would ever even attempt to make a dish like gnocchi, it sounds exotic and is hard to spell so it's gotta be hard to make, right? But, while I was browsing my favorite blog, http://www.thepioneerwoman.com/, last night I happened upon a recipe for gnocchi in the tasty kitchen link, the author of which has a great blog herself so I linked the recipe to her blog so you can check it out yourself. I quickly scanned through the recipe, curious to see if in fact it would be a super duper hard, next to impossible recipe, and I was pleasently shocked. This recipe didn't look as if I could screw it up, well at least not royally, so here goes nothing....
Sweet Potato Ricotta Gnocchi adapted from Deborah Mele
Ingredients:
2 Pounds Sweet Potatoes
2/3 Cup Ricotta Cheese
1 Large Egg Yolk
1 Teaspoon Salt
1/2 Teaspoon Finely Ground Black Pepper
1 1/4 cups flour, approximately
1 1/2 Sticks Unsalted Butter
20 Fresh Sage Leaves
Salt & Pepper, to taste
Freshly Grated Parmesan Cheese
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Bake sweet potatoes until very tender, about 55 60 minutes. Allow to cool a bit.
2. Cut the sweet potatoes in half and scoop out the pulp then mash the pulp into a large bowl.
3. Add the ricotta, egg yolk, and salt and pepper and mix well.
4. Add the flour, about 1/2 cup at a time, until you get a workable dough. ***This is where I think I failed a bit by adding way too much flour. See my note below!
5. Grab a handful of the dough and roll it into about a 1 inch roll on a lightly floured cutting board or counter top.. Use a knife to cut the roll into about 1 inch pieces of dough. Place all the pieces of dough on a floured backing sheet and refrigerate until ready to cook.
7. In a small pot, allow the butter to foam up then add the sage leaves, salt and pepper and cook until the butter is lightly browned.
8. When large pot of water is boiling, throw the pieces of dough in and when they rise scoop them out with a slotted spoon and place them in a platter.
9. Pour the warm butter sauce over the gnocchi and toss to coat. Serve immediately with the grated cheese on top.
Since gnocchi is a very heavy dish, I wanted something healthy and light to go along with it. I choose another dish from the tasty kitchen link, thereby finding another great blog to check out as well. My veggie of choice is brussel sprouts. I know they get a really bad rap but I just so happen to really like them, so there! :^p
Lemon Garlic Brussel Sprouts adapted from whatsgabycooking
2 lb Brussel Sprouts
4 tbsp olive oil
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 lemon, juiced and zested
3 tbsp gruyere cheese, grated
sea salt
pepper
1. Clean and trim the brussel sprouts then cut them in half.
2. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add the brussel sprouts to the skillet and saute for about 7-8 minutes on each side until brown and tender. Halfway through cooking add the garlic to the skille
3. Reduce the heat to low and add the lemon zest, juice, salt and pepper, to taste.
4. Add the cheese before ready to serve.
***Preparing the brussel sprouts was a breeze. The gnocchi, was a bit more frustrating. My dough was really sticky. Is this normal? I don't know, but I added a ton more flour to the sweet potato mixture to try and make it less sticky. I probably added 3 cups! I am sure I way over did the flour but even after three cups it was really sticky. I had to really flour the counter and wet my hands to make it more manageable. I have to say that it was pretty fun plopping the little clumps of dough into a pot of boiling water and then scooping them out with my slotted spoon when they were done, magically rising to the top of the boiling water. Little things amuse me, I guess!
As a last minute decision, my hubby and I trekked on down to my in-laws house with all my fixin's, to test out these new dishes on them. Hubby thought we needed some meat with the dish, so we swung through a KFC drive-thru and picked up some chicken strips to go along with the meal. The overall verdict was a good one...but they could have been just being nice, lol! In all seriousness, it was a good meal. I preferred the brussel sprouts dish over the gnocchi one. I didn't use my butter sauce on the gnocchi because I accidentally used salted butter and it just seemed a tad bit too salty when I tried it out. My mother-in-law tasted it after our meal was over and she thought it tasted fine. I should have just used it, but I have a habit of second guessing myself. I think the gnocchi definitely needed that butter sauce to kick it up a notch. I will try it out with my over-abundence of leftovers and see how that goes. (Six servings worth was a tad much for four people. I even think 6 people would have a hard time eating it all!)
Seeing as how no one threw up or spit anything out, I would say tonight's dinner was a success!
This was yummy!
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