It's right off the Blue Ridge Parkway, and while some of the leaves had been blown away by the wind and the change of seasons, there were wonderful walking paths to follow. Many of them are lined with rhododendrons, and will be beautiful to see in the spring. We walked to Bass Lake and back, around 5 miles.
After such a delightful day, we decided to make Whole Wheat Sweet Potato Gnocchi (with Sage Brown Butter sauce) for dinner, along with Skate in an herb-white wine sauce (which I've posted before). Very easy and yummy dinner!
WHOLE WHEAT SWEET POTATO GNOCCHI
Ingredients
1 large sweet potato, peeled
1 – 1 ½ cup whole wheat flour (or use white flour)
1 egg, slightly beaten (or ¼ cup fake eggs)
Pinch of salt
Making the gnocchi.
Start by peeling your sweet potatoes and cut them into large 2 inch cubes. Also, get a large pot of salted water boiling (use about 1 Tablespoon of kosher salt per gallon of water). Drop these chunks of potatoes straight into the water and let them cook until they are very tender, about 20 minutes.
After cooking and draining, move the potatoes to a bowl lined with paper towels which will soak up a lot of water. Let them rest for a few minutes. The key to making these gnocchi light is to ultimately add as little flour as possible to the dough. That means that you need to draw out as much water as possible from the cooked potatoes.
Then add your dried potatoes to a much larger bowl and mush them up with a fork or potato masher. The potatoes need to cool completely
Once your sweet potatoes have cooled, add the one egg and mix it well. Then slowly add your flour, 1/4 of a cup at a time, until the dough starts to come together.
Ultimately, you want something that is very soft, but manageable. Something like loose Play-Doh. I ended up adding about 1.5 Cups flour. Knowing how much flour to add is where experience comes in. If you just follow the recipe you might end up with gnocchi that don’t hold together or are as hard as a rock.
Just work slowly. Eventually, your dough should look something like this.
Forming the gnocchi. To form the gnocchi, take about 1/4 of the dough and add it to a well floured surface. Turn it around to coat it completely in flour and then start slowly rolling it into a long snake. Try to get it as even a thickness as possible. You’re going for about the thickness of your thumb.
Once you get the rope of gnocchi to the right width, chop it into 1/2 inch sections!
Optional (I didn't). You can just cook these as is, but if you want them to have a more traditional feel, you need to add the gnocchi ridges. Take each little gnocchi nugget and roll it gently over the tines of a fork. The dough should be very soft and it won’t take much pressure to leave the impressions of the fork on the gnocchi. Once you make the ridges, set the gnocchi on a very lightly floured baking sheet while you do the others.
Cooking the gnocchi. Add as many as you need to a pot of simmering, water. A rolling boil will destroy your work! When they float (like Matzo Balls), they are done!
Storing the gnocchi. Gnocchi that you don’t eat immediately can be frozen for later (and this recipe makes a LOT of gnocchi). Just freeze them on a baking sheet and when they are completely frozen you can store them in a plastic bag for weeks without a problem. No need to thaw before cooking. Just add them straight to the boiling water.
SAGE BROWN BUTTER SAUCE
Melt butter in heavy large saucepan over medium-high heat. Cook until butter solids are brown and have toasty aroma, swirling pan occasionally, about 5 minutes.
Add chopped sage (mixture will bubble up). Turn off heat. Season sage butter generously with salt and pepper.
You can taste them from the picture alone!
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