Sweet Potato Gnocchi

By NicoleCLang • November 10, 2009 • 0 Comments

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Sweet Potato Gnocchi — 1 of 2 Photo by NicoleCLang

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Author Notes: It's fall. Time for comfort food. My favorite comfort food is homemade pasta. Every year, on my birthday my Grandmother made me her homemade gnocchi. She served them with a red sauce. As I got 2 lbs of sweet potatoes from our CSA recently, I settled in for an evening to prepare the food I consider to be my birthright. - NicoleCLang

Serves 4

1.5 pounds sweet potato
1 egg
2 cups flour
pinches salt
pinches pepper
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
6 tablespoons butter
1 handful grana padano/ Italian hard cheese, grated

Bake sweet potatoes in a 450 degree oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Cool, peel and then rice them. Stir the spices into the flour.
On a clean cutting board, make a mound out of the potatoes, make a well in the center and drop egg in. Mix it into the potatoes, add the flour mixture and knead into a dough. Add a bit more flour if the dough is too sticky.
Cut your dough into sections and roll each one into a half inch rope. Using a knife or dough cutter, make 1 inch pieces, and at this point you can give them ridges with the back of a fork, I like mine without as that is how my grandmother made them.
Boil a large pot of liberally salted water. Once it boils, gently lower your gnocchi into the pot in batches. They are done when they float to the top.
While the water boils, make a light sage sauce for them. Melt the butter in a saucepan. When it becomes foamy, add your sage. Stir until they get a nice crisp. Add a teensy bit of the gnocchi water if you need to. Take off heat.
When all of the gnocchi are done, coat them in the sauce, sprinkle with the grana padano, garnish with fresh sage and serve.