hello this is chef john from food wishes comm with sweet potato gnocchi that's
right i'm going to show you how to produce little pillows of pasta using a
sweet potato which is gonna be a lot of fun and pretty easy and since we're
using the orange flash sweet potato i was just about to say also nutritious
let that i remember we're gonna be saucing this with a bacon butter so I
guess we'll put good for you in the maybe column but definitely fun easy
beautiful and most importantly delicious so with that let's go ahead get started
by taking 1 large sweet potato and performing the old pokken roast which
just means taking a sharp knife and pricking the skin all over before we
roast this until it's completely tender which I like to do in the microwave
since it's fast and easy but you could also of course do this in the oven ok it
really doesn't matter as long as when you're done it is very very very soft
which we will know for sure by poking with a knife and then what we'll do once
this is cool enough to handle although still very warm is go ahead and split
that in half and then using a spoon we'll go ahead and scoop all that
gorgeous orange flesh into a bowl oh and I should mention these orange ones are
often sold as yams at the store purely for marketing purposes but they're not
they're actually just orange flesh sweet potatoes and while any variety will work
these orange ones are clearly the most beautiful and from what I hear the most
nutritious and that's it once all that flesh has been scooped and scraped from
the skin we'll go ahead and take a potato masher and smash this nice and
smooth which you can definitely do in a food processor but it's been my
experience that cleaning a food processor is way harder than this and
while using a machine we'll get this a little smoother with just a couple
minutes of mashing with a hand tool this is gonna be plenty smooth and then once
that set we'll go ahead and add one optional ingredient a nice spoon of
ricotta cheese and if you don't have it or don't want to add it this will still
work but I do think these are a little nicer with a little touch of that in
there we will also toss in one large beaten egg as well as of course some
salt and definitely a few shakes of our good old friend cayenne pepper and then
what we'll do is take a spoon and give this a very thorough mixing until all of
those ingredients are thoughtfully combined and as far as simple everyday
meditations go you really can't beat stirring something together alright
scientists can't explain it but really does make you feel better but
anyway once we have that well mixed and we're feeling nice and relaxed well go
ahead and add some all-purpose flour and we'll continue mixing with the spoon
all right sort of slowly at first if for no other reason than so we don't knock
all the flour out of the bowl and then once that flour does start to get
incorporated we can begin to stir a little more aggressively and basically
we're gonna keep stirring until the mixture comes together and we think we
can switch to working it with our hands and by the way if you have to add a
little more flour for that to happen go ahead and once we've reached that point
we'll go ahead and transfer that from the bowl to our work surface which is
the surface upon which we work in our entire game plan here is to just work in
enough flour with some very gentle kneading and massaging until we achieve
a dough that we're able to roll out into like half-inch thick ropes and if the
dough seems too wet and it's sticking to the table or to your hands just add some
more flour until it stops doing those things and while it is true this stuff
would be easier to work with if we added a ton of flour that would also make our
gnocchi very dry and heavy and tough whereas what we really want with these
is something that's moist and relatively tender so right about here my dough is
feeling pretty good so I stopped and formed into some kind of uniform shape
at which point I'd dusted it with flour and then grabbed my bench scraper so I
could cut it into quarters to begin the rolling process and since it had been a
while since I made these with this first piece I made two major mistakes all
right first of all I applied way too much flour which means there was not
enough friction for this dough to grip the table and my hands so I didn't have
enough of what we call in the business gription okay when you use that much
flour the dough just kind of slides through it or as we say snow plows as I
continue to just blatantly make up culinary terms and then the other
mistake is this piece was too big as I think 1/8 of this dough there's probably
a much easier size to roll out so I cut it in half but anyway I kept at it and
eventually I did obtain enough gription to get this thing to roll out which
generally we want to do in a direction from the center out towards the ends I'm
sure there were a few hiccups along the way all right some spots still had too
much flour while other spots were too sticky and needed more flour
but as you know we never let the food win so I just kept at it and a couple
minutes later I managed to roll this out into about a half inch thick rope or as
my grandmother used to call it snake oh and for your information each roll I did
after this one got a little easier and came out a little better so why didn't I
film one of those well as the kids used to say to keep it real and once we do
have that rolled out into a fairly uniform rope or snake we'll go ahead and
dust the top with flour and then using our bench scraper which we should also
flour well go ahead and cut these about every half inch to make some beautiful
little gnocchi and if I thought my muscle memory was bad when it came to
roll in the dough that was nothing compared to me trying to cut these I
mean it really does look like I've never done this before but like I said the
second one did go a lot better both with the rolling and the cutting which is why
I'm gonna show you to redeem myself a little bit oh yeah now we got the hang
of it and now that was not sped up I'm
insulted by your question and sure if you want to roll your ropes a little
thicker and cut these into a little bigger pieces go ahead alright as long
as they're fairly consistent the size is up to you I mean you are after all the
Chuck D of your gnocchi but personally when it comes to this
sweet potato version I think nice little small ones are the way to go okay I just
think the final texture is a little better and as we finish these what we'll
want to do is transfer those onto some kind of floured pan making sure they're
nicely spaced and not touching at which point I like to let them sit and air dry
for at least 15 or 20 minutes before we try to boil them and of course you can
make these ahead and pop them in the fridge but I was hungry so I decided to
enjoy some right now and while those arrested we can go ahead and bring some
salted water up to a boil as well as prepare whatever sauce we're gonna
finish these with which for me is gonna be some bacon infused butter although
it's really probably more like a butter infused bacon but anyway what I did was
slice up a few strips of bacon and brown it up in a pan over medium heat at which
point I transferred in some butter that we can just simply let melt or if we
want we can actually toast it a little bit until it turns sort of a golden
brown and takes out a little bit of a nuttier flavor
all right brown butter is a very common sauce for gnocchi and I like to do it
both ways all right it depends on my mood
many of them once we're happy with our butter we can go ahead and turn off the
heat and finish this by stirring in some freshly minced rosemary or with some
other sweet potato friendly herb like sage or maybe time and that's it we'll
stir that in and simply reserve that until our gnocchi are cooked which I'm
gonna go ahead and do right now and please make sure this water is well
salted all right the water should taste like seawater or as the Italians say
making sure the water tasted like a seawater sorry I'm not fluent but anyway
we'll go ahead and transfer our gnocchi in and then we'll give them a quick stir
and as we do you're gonna notice two things these are all gonna sink to the
bottom but also turn into the most beautiful orange color you've ever seen
all right check that out and then what we're gonna do is cook these for about
three or four minutes or until they float okay that's how you can tell when
they're done and if they do float you know you have a properly manioc e and if
they don't float they're witches but don't worry they always float and once
they do we'll go ahead and transfer those into whatever sauce were using and
we'll go ahead and turn our heat back on to medium or maybe a little higher if
you want to fry these a little bit and that's it once these are heated with our
sauce we are pretty much ready to serve and it's probably not a bad idea to give
these a little more salt oh and by the way if you did want to fry these a
little more aggressively over higher heat you'll probably want to use a
nonstick pan for that because these can stick but I'm not gonna fry mine I'm
just gonna cook these stirring for about a minute before turning off the heat and
finishing up with some freshly grated parmesan and that's it my adorable
little sweet potato gnocchi are done and ready to serve up and hopefully a warm
bowl and once I had spewed in what is basically an appetizer sized portion I
went ahead and finished with a little more cheese as well as the obligatory
sprig of rosemary for the pictures and after taking a few of those I grabbed a
fork and dug in and those my friends really were lovely and I was very happy
with how they came out okay because I was careful not to work
too much flour in they were not super dense and dry and chewy okay they stayed
nice and moist and tender and again I think one of the keys here is making
these nice and small just in case maybe you worked in a little too much flour or
maybe work the dough a little too much and as far as the flavors go that earthy
subtle sweetness from the sweet potato works so well with the bacon and also
that little touch of rosemary and of course copious amounts of butter and
Parmesan never hurts and while this really was an ultra simple way to enjoy
these they don't really need a lot of help to shine but having said that these
would work in your favorite pasta sauce whether that is a simple tomato based
marinara or maybe a rich and decadent gorgonzola cream sauce oh yeah that
would be good or really anything you'd serve regular potato gnocchi with and
right here I was trying to cut one in half so you can see the texture inside
but they're too small so you'll just have to trust me and as fantastic and
appetizer as this makes do not be afraid to use this as a side dish
all right especially since you can boil these ahead of time and then just heat
them up in the pan or whatever you cooked is your main course whether
that's a pork chop or a piece of chicken or a steak or whatever but anyway
whether you serve these as a side dish or as an appetizer or a main course the
important thing is that you serve them which is why I really do hope you give
these a try soon so please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts a
printable written recipe and much more info as usual and as always
you