Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Pumpkin Gnocchi

I fell in love with gnocchi the first time I tasted it. I was at an Italian restaurant in Old City, and the name caught my eye, so I asked the waiter about it. He told me that it was a potato pasta, and that he highly recommended it. I ordered it, and it did not disappoint. I was hooked ever since. I soon found out it was sold frozen in grocery stores, and every so often I pick up a bag (when its on sale). I've looked at recipes in hopes of making it from scratch on several occasions, but they all seemed too intimidating. But I had some leftover canned pumpkin from when I made the last recipe, and a shot in the dark googling of "pumpkin gnocchi" yielded pay dirt. No cooking or ricing of potatoes required. As a nod to healthy eating, I based my recipe on one I found at shape.com. I skipped the sauce because I had some marinara from a previous meal, and the next day I had the leftovers tossed in a bit of butter with some parmesan thrown on top. Amazing both ways.

I had shredded parmesan so I used that, though the recipe called for grated. Next time I will definitely use the grated, because some of the ends of the cheese shreds stuck out of the pasta after rolling, and it just looked weird after boiling. Still tasted great though. Also it called for an egg white, but I didn't have any eggs and I saw many recipes that skipped it, so I did as well. Another note: the dough is really sticky. You need to use a lot of flour when shaping the pasta because it will stick to your hands otherwise.

Pumpkin Gnocchi
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/8 tsp each nutmeg and garlic powder
3/4 cup all purpose flour, plus more for dusting

Combine canned pumpkin with cheese and spices (you want to mix well here, before adding the flour, because once the flour is in too much mixing will cause your gnocci to be tough). Add flour, mixing until just combined. Dust work surface and hands liberally with flour. Turn dough out onto flour and split into six portions, using more flour as needed. Roll each portion into a snake about 1/2 inch thick. Chop each snake into half inch pieces. Roll each piece into an oval shape, press tines of a fork briefly into pasta to shape. To cook: Bring salted water to boil. Add gnocchi to pot a few at a time, cook until they rise to the top, about three minutes. Pull out with slotted spoon, serve with sauce of your choice.

1 comment:

  1. Hey more entries please. Ehem it is a new year, ya know!!! -smiles-

    ReplyDelete