Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Garlic Alfredo

We got sweet potatoes in our last CSA box & I decided I wanted to substitute sweet potatoes for regular potatoes in gnocchi. I thought I was being really novel until I saw all the recipes for this online & then Giada cooked it last week on Everyday Italian.  
Sweet Potato Gnocchi
There are a couple different versions of gnocchi recipes out there, either those that use egg or those that use ricotta cheese. I decided to use ricotta because I read it made for a light gnocchi. I ended up going with the Giada recipe except I used nutmeg instead of cinnamon. The dough was a lot stickier than I thought it would be & I ended up adding almost twice as much flour as the recipe called for & it was still sticky. I really needed to have a lot of flour on my work surface to roll the gnocchi out as well. You are supposed to roll the gnocchi over fork tines but they were just too soft to do that so I just kept the pillow shape.
Sweet Potato Gnocchi
We had planned on doing these with brown butter & sage but I had baked with brown butter earlier in the day & we had had enough of it for one day. So, Matt decided to make a garlic alfredo sauce. We thought its mellow creaminess would suit the sweetness of the gnocchi well.

We liked this dish quite a bit. I really wanted to love it but I think the sweet potato flavor didn't come through as much as I had hoped. The gnocchi was nice & light, I was afraid with the extra flour it might not be. I think we might try making this gnocchi again & serve it with the brown butter to see if you taste the sweet potato more.

Sweet Potato Gnocchi

1 lb sweet potato
1/3 c ricotta cheese
3/4 t salt
1/4 t grated nutmeg
pinch of pepper
3/4 c all-purpose flour (or more as needed) plus more for work surface

Preheat the oven to 400 F. Poke a few holes in the sweet potatoes & place in the oven. Cook for 40 - 50 minutes until soft. Remove from oven & let cool. 

Remove the skins from the cooled potatoes & mash them, you should have about 1 cup of sweet potato. Stir the ricotta, salt, nutmeg & pepper into the mashed potatoes. Add the flour 1/4 cup at a time until you have a soft dough.

Flour your work surface. Using about 1/3 of the dough at a time roll it out to a 1-inch wide rope. Use a sharp knife to cut the rope into 1-inch pieces. 

Bring a large pot of water to a boil, salt & add 1/2 of the gnocchi. Boil for 5 - 6 minutes. Remove the cooked gnocchi with a strainer & cover to keep warm while you cook the second half.

Serves 2

Garlic Alfredo

2 T unsalted butter
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 c cream
1/2 c grated parmesan
salt & pepper

Melt the butter over medium-low heat. Add garlic & cook a few minutes. Whisk in the cream. Add the cheese a little at time, whisking to melt. Salt & pepper to taste.

serves 2

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

This looks lovely. I like gnocchi a lot, and never thought about making it with sweet potato before! Pairing it with an alfredo cream sauce sounds good.

Maria said...

This looks fantastic. I love sweet potatoes and I am sure they are perfect in this dish!

Anonymous said...

It looks absolutely delicious!

....I've seen 2 other people who made gnocchi saying they used twice the flour the recipe called for, but a few OTHER recipes I've seen ask that you sieve the potatoes overnight to drain the moisture... perhaps that's why yours took more flour?....


Love the blog.

Thanks!

eatingclubvancouver_js said...

I love the garlic alfredo sauce on the gnocchi! It's inspired.

I don't know about the flour issue, not having made gnocchi before, and I do wonder what the difference is: egg vs ricotta cheese.

Jersey Girl Cooks said...

Isn't making gnochhi fun? These look great.

Anonymous said...

I just read a sweet potato gnocchi post last week and they had the very same issue. I can't for the life of me remember what the solution was, though. They look awesome, and that alfredo sauce sounds like the perfect match.

grace said...

i never tasted gnocchi, much less made it for myself. sweet potatoes happen to be one of my favorite vegetables, so color me extremely enticed. :)

Deborah said...

One of these days I will make gnocchi from scratch!

Alexa said...

My friend had a cooking party for her bday last year and we made sweet potato gnocchi. They were amazing and easy to make... just like yours!

Anonymous said...

Wow! Looks mouth watering.

PG said...

That's odd about needing 2X as much flour. I wonder if it's the consistency of the sweet potato. I'd like to try gnocci one day. Mind you, I'd like to attempt any sort of homemade pasta.

Alicia Foodycat said...

I'm sorry the paste was hard to work - but they look absolutely perfect! I think those sorts of recipes are guidelines really, because sometimes you'll get a dry, dense sweet potato and sometimes it'll be moister, so it'll take differing amounts of flour. And then is it a drained ricotta or a milky one? So many variables.

gaga said...

Mmmm, sweet potato gnocchi is a great twist on gnocchi. I have some sitting in my freezer that I made a while ago but haven't decided what sauce to pair it with. Garlic alfredo sounds great!

Peter M said...

Ahhh, a gnocchi dilemma, when to rice/mash them. My goof pal ZenChef swears one must rice them when still hot - to avoid dense or heavy gnocchi.

I'll have to put it to the test and I love'em and have yet to make them.

Peabody said...

The garlic alfredo sounds especially yummy.

Anonymous said...

If you drain the ricotta for a couple of hours over a strainer lined with a coffee filters, your dough will be less sticky and require less flour.

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