Easy Chestnut Gnocchi Recipe | You've Got Meal!

It is entirely Mrs. G's merit for introducing chestnuts in our kitchen and it was a stroke of inspirations from her. We first ate the woody fruit boiled and, although I have to admit my reticence, I really enjoyed the sweet, nutty,  taste of the chestnut. And, from that to gnocchi there was just one more step.

Chestnut gnocchi is a dish cooked in North Italy, in the mountainous region where wheat flour was often substituted with chestnut flour or buckwheat flour (Pizzoccheri della Valtellina comes to mind here). The gnocchi is really easy to make, either with pureed fruit or with flour, depending on what you can get your hands on. There isn’t much of a difference in texture or taste, but you have to keep in mind the fact that if you boil the chestnuts and mash them, they will have some water left in them. If using flour, also use potatoes (boiled or baked) and replace the wheat flour (all or part of it) with the chestnut flour.

Anyway, this the way we made the gnocchi: 

• 300 grams of blitzed (in a blender) boiled chestnuts, 
• 200 grams of wheat flour,
• 1 egg, 
• a healthy splash of a good quality, fruity olive oil, 
• salt.

1. Mix all the ingredients together, adding more water if necessary to make the dough. Knead it until you get a silky outcome and let the dough rest in the fridge for half an hour. Quick note here: love the color of this gnocchi – dark brown, similar to a classic toffee. 
2. Next, we split the dough into 4, and worked each piece into a, let’s call it snake form, 2 cm thick. 
3. Cut each string of rolled dough in equal 2-3 cm gnocchi dollops. 
4. In order to give them the classic look, roll each gnocchi on the back of a (preferably long) fork. 
5. In order to cook the pasta, bring to a boil a nice amount of salted water and put in it some gnocchi, put make sure you don’t overcrowd the pot, they will need room to rise and cook – I kept mine around 4 minutes longer after they’ve raised to the surfaced. 
6. Remove from the pot and let them steam for 2 minutes.

 

You know from previous posts that we enjoyed the butter-sage mix for the gnocchi, so we decided to play it safe for our first chestnut cooking attempt. 

1. Melt 75 grams of butter on medium heat and cook 2-3 tbs. of chopped sage in it for 30 seconds. 
2. Pop the gnocchi in the pan and mix well in order to make sure it is well coated with the sage and butter, cook for 2-3 minutes. 
3. Plate and grate a fair amount of Pecorino Romano, maybe add a tiny splash of olive oil. 

As a couple of conclusions to this dish, I have to say that chestnut gnocchi is not a bad option at all from the classic recipe, I would come back to it on special occasions, but I think I would stick to the spuds for the “everyday” gnocchi. 

The sweet and nutty taste is something special and it does give a rather unique feel to the whole dish -  also quite filling, I couldn’t eat my usual portion of pasta. And it does have the wow factor when presented at a dinner table, so keep that in mind when trying to figure out a menu for an occasion like that. 

Enjoy,

The Return of the Vengeful Gnocchi- Gnocchi with Spicy Seafood Ragu

The previous gnocchi recipe, with butter and sage sauce

 Guess who’s back? I really felt like eating some more of this wonderful potato pasta, so I decided to give it a try with a nice, thick, red ragu sauce. Initially, I opted for rabbit, but I couldn’t find a decent piece of meat, so we’ll leave that for another time.

Regarding the pasta, this has been done before, check it out here (it actually went better then than now).

For the sauce:

200 grams of baby squids, 

200 grams of shrimp tails, 

2 small red onions, 

3 garlic cloves, 

2 tbs of fresh thyme leaves, 

6 mushrooms (I used champignon), 

2 tbs  dark sugar, 

1tsp chilli powder, 

½ glass of medium red wine, 

salt, pepper, olive oil.

So, on medium heat cook the onions (diced), mushrooms (finely sliced) and sugar, for about 5-6 minutes then add the diced garlic, thyme and chilli and cook for another minute. Add the squids then cook those for about 10 minutes, the put in the shrimp and give that 1-2 minutes. If you’re using frozen seafood, keep in mind that the meat will shrink and it will lose a lot of weight on the fire, so you can increase your quantities. 

Ok, next pour in the wine, lower heat, and let it simmer until the sauce thickens (shouldn’t be long). In the end, pour in the pasta, and mix everything for another minute, adding more of the gnocchi water if you feel the sauce is too thick. Plate your dish, then add some more thyme leaves for an extra kick. 

The previous gnocchi recipe, with butter and sage sauce

Enjoy!

Simple Recipe- Gnocchi with Sage and Butter Sauce

As promised, here is how we served the gnocchi from the previous post.

Being the first time we made gnocchi, we decided to go with a simple sauce, that will not overshadow the fruit of our labour, but will complement these amazing Italian dumplings perfectly.

This whole sauce takes about 3 minutes so time your cooking very carefully and coordinate it with the boiling gnocchi. In a large pan we melted about 50g of butter and when it started to bubble we added the chopped sage and after 1 minute we added 2 cloves of garlic, also chopped.  After 2 minutes, add the pasta and toss it around in the sauce, making sure it is well coated.

Cook it for another 2 minutes, after which it should have a light brown colour. Serve it with grated parmesan.

For a twist, we also added to the recipe  after putting the gnocchi in the butter some canned salsify (oyster plant). You just need to heat it up, there is no cooking neccesary with the canned type. It brings a nice touch to the dish with its slightly tangy taste and it is fleshy enough to subtitute meat.

I am impressed by this Italian classic and how the gnocchi absorbs the flavour. Actually, the little line marks you make with a special tool or with the fork have this purpose, to hold the flavours better. I have been wanting to try and make the homemade version for some time now. I remember the first time I had this kind of pasta, I was in Bregenz, Austria, and an Italian restaurant. I wanted to try the gnocchi so I asked the waiter what it was. I will never forget the surprised look on his face and his answer : Gnocchi is Gnocchi! And, now, I have to say, he was right, you can't really find a comparison.

I know the butter sauce is not actually a staple of Italian Cuisine, but it works perfectly with the gnocchi and it couldn't be easier.

Hope you try it and enjoy it like we did.

Homemade Gnocchi from Scratch- 1st Attempt

Last night we made (or, at least tried to) gnocchi. The recipe is a rather easy one, and the resulting dough is very easy to knead. So, we used 1 cup of baked potatoes, that we put through a fine strainer (you can use a rice mill if you have one, the strainer part was the hardest one of the recipe), 2 cups of flour and 1egg yolk.

Mix everything together, either with your hand or with a cake spatula, so you don't get yourself dirty. The dough is a very soft one, knead it on a highly floured working board because, as you work it, you will need to incorporate more flour into it.

We stopped kneading when the dough wasn't sticking at all when worked through (it incorporated enough flour), but still had a very nice and fluffy consistency. It's not like the pasta dough, you will not get the same elastic, harder type. The resulting quantity of dough we split into 4 pieces, and rolled each one until they were about 2-3 cm thick. After that we cut the rolls in 1-2 cm pieces (you can cut into bigger pieces but we liked the smaller version better). After this we wanted to give the gnocchi its trademark stripe. You can do that by either rolling the gnocchi on the back of a fork, or just lightly pressing the fork on the gnocchi.

 It taked very little time to boil the gnocchi, about 3-4 minutes, depending on size, you need to pull them out when they start floating. So this was our attempt, hope it helps, we really liked the results and will be doing it again for sure. And next time we'll also post a very nice, easy, simple and oh so delicious sauce (also butter-licious, small spoiler there).

See you next time!