Sweet Potato Gnocchi

Sweet potatoes, fresh herbs, and starch... what more could a girl ask for?! In my attempts to steer clear from gluten, I've found my love for potatoes and pasta is best quenched by gnocchi... Something came over me the other day and I decided I'd attempt to make some myself. 

As much as I love gnocchi, I'm a little surprised it's taken me this long to make it! Certainly there's an art...

Smells good...

Check out alla that BUTTA! :)

Steamin' up the windows!

Sweet Potato Gnocchi

Serves... it's questionable to be completely honest.

You will need:

2 large sweet potatoes (approx. 1 pound each)

1 1/2 to 2 cups flour (I used GF, but whole wheat would be a good choice too!)

1 egg

1/4 cup parmesan cheese

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 stick of butter (1/2 pound)

fresh sage

olive oil

kosher salt

parmesan cheese

To make:

First you'll need to cook the sweet potatoes. Make sure to poke them all over to avoid unnecessary messes and extra trips to the market. Bake at 450°F for about 40 minutes or until tender and cooked completely through. 

You'll then need to mix your dough. Let your potatoes cool to the point where you can handle them. Remove the skins and mash them with a potato masher/ricer. (I ended up using my Microplane once my hands and arms got too tired!) 

Add your egg, 1/4 cup parmesan cheese, 1 teaspoon kosher salt, and 1 1/2 cups flour. (I even added some of the fresh minced sage at this point.)

Mix with a spoon and then kneed until a dough forms. Gradually add additional flour until the dough is no longer sticky. This could be quite a bit of flour - if it's too sticky to roll out, add more flour!

Divide the dough into four parts. I created a large ball and flattened it out and divided it into 6 pizza/pie-like sections. I then took those sections and used my hands to roll each section into a very long, skinny rope. These next few parts are probably the most time consuming part (for me anyways, trying to get pretty little dumplings.) Cut off small parts of the dough to form the gnocchi. If you want them to look pretty, you can then roll them with your fork to get a cute little imprint, but I found this wasn't really critical and opted not to once I'd already lost 20 minutes of my life beautifying half of the batch. 

Place the gnocchi on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. From here you can either freeze them or immediately boil them and prepare them to enjoy.

When ready to serve, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Boil the gnocchi. I had to boil them in quite a few batches, probably because I couldn't move them all into the pot quick enough... I also didn't want them to stick to each other. Boil them until the float, generally about 5 minutes.

Simultaneously, melt butter in a heavy saucepan over medium-high heat. Cook until butter solids are brown and have a toasty aroma, swirling the pan occasionally to avoid burning. About 5 minutes. 

Add chopped sage (get ready for bubbles!) Turn off heat. Season sage butter to taste with salt.

Transfer half of the sage butter to a large skillet and set over medium-high heat. Add half of the gnocchi. Sauté until they are heated through and lightly golden... and crispy. Keep this rhythm and rotation until all gnocchi have had their dance in the skillet. Keep previously toasted gnocchi in warm oven. 

Garnish with fresh sage and parmesan. 

Enjoy!

DELICIOUS. I'm just going to have to figure out how to better the ratios of butter and servings... I'll let you know if that ever happens. :)

First attempt: walking away knowing it probably won't ever look as amazing as it tastes and if the recipe is meant to feed six, it doesn't mean humans... certainly not Norwegians.