"Pumpkin Everythang”
I’ve always wanted to make gnocchi. In my early days of
cooking, when I was mostly a spectator (that is watching food network) I
decided to try these little Italian dumplings, however I purchased the prepackaged ones in the pasta
section and needless to say it was not good. It deterred me from ever trying or
attempting to make gnocchi again. That was years ago, and I know better now. Its
always better to make your own than to do store bought if you can. So one fateful
jet blue flight from Kingston to JFK about two months ago, I was watching food
network on my little mini screen. I saw a really quick video with Mario Batali
and Mark Bittman making gnocchi and as usual the light bulb went off.
My brain goes into
overdrive when it comes to making my recipes. I get the idea for a dish, then
immediately the brainstorming begins; I think of what I want it to taste like,
sweet, salty, garlicky, what kind of cooking method, what sauce, can I get the
ingredients in Jamaica etc. I sometimes even close my eyes and imagine what it
would taste like. Most of the recipes I post to the blog were written two
months ahead so there are always changes being made right down to the last second.
I do this for 90 percent of my blog recipes, especially the ones I have made
for the first time. And they always come
out as I envision. My gnocchi were very tender, not as light and fluffy as I'm sure they should have been but still good. The rosemary , sage, wine, garlic all came together and made an absolutely delicious dumpling.
Ingredients (printable recipe)
Gnocchi dough
1.5 lb Roasted pumpkin
2.5 cup Flour
1 Egg
1 yolk
½ tsp. Salt
A whole lot of time
Sauce
2 cubes Frozen Rosemary/butter
1 tsp ground sage
1 small Shallot
3 cloves garlic
1 cup wine
¾ cup cream cheese
½ tsp. Salt
1 tsp. sugar
½ tsp. black pepper
Instructions
- Place cleaned pumpkin (skin on) in an oven and bake until fork tender
- When cooked use a fork and scrape along the pumpkin flesh to remove it.
- Spread out pumpkin flesh on a floured surface while still hot
- Sprinkle your flour and salt on top followed by the beaten eggs
- Combine the mixture adding more flour if needed till it forms a dough
- Roll out the dough to about 1/2 inch thick and cut in long strips then cut again into little cubes
- Take each cube and roll off the back of a fork to get the ridged shape
- Then boil in some salted water until they float. Repeat till all your gnocchi is cooked
- Place two cubes of the frozen rosemary oil/butter and sage in a sauce pan and melt
- Saute the Gnocchi in the rosemary sage butter till they are browned and crispy, remove from pan and set aside
- In the same pan saute the shallots, add wine, cream cheese, black pepper salt and sugar,
- stir the mixture until thick then toss the gnocchi back in the sauce and serve
I don't know why I thought this would be easy to make, you see Mario and all these chefs and cooks rolling the dough off the fork with ease. Its NOT easy, its really hard, maybe I was just trying too hard for mine to look pretty, or it could just be the pumpkin dough instead of the potato dough. However Kudos to all the gnocchi making Italians reading this post. Like I said earlier its always better to make things yourself than buy the ready-made ones, However I can proudly say, this will be my first and last time making gnocchi. Ill save it for restaurant hopping, Yummy, but really time consuming.
Greedy Tips:
- I only used half the gnocchi with the cream cheese sauce, I froze the other half in the freezer to use later in a sweet variation.
- Start with 1.5 cups of flour, and add more if you need to to get the dough to come together.
- The less you knead it the better, they get more chewy the more you work the dough
- Test the first few in the boiling water to make sure they don't fall apart when boiled.
- pumpkin can be a bit soggy when boiled, so bake the pumpkin to cook them instead of boiling
- the Frozen rosemary oil/butter recipe can be used with any herb you have, this prevents your fresh herbs from rotting in the fridge if you don't use them all at once.
Frozen herb butter (Printable Recipe)
1 bunch of fresh rosemary
1/2 stick salted butter
1/2 cup of olive oil
- Take rosemary and pull against the direction of leave growth to easily remove leaves
- Melt the butter
- In a food processor, combine oil, butter and rosemary
- Blend lightly just to begin to infuse the rosemary into the fat
- Pour in an empty ice cube tray and freeze
- Remove from the tray and store in a zip lock back to use whenever your ready
Xoxo Greedygirl