- Hey guys.
- Today, I'm gonna show you how to make
a fantastic recipe for the fall.
It's my homemade sweet potato gnocchis with sage butter.
I love this recipe,
because it has so many terrific flavors.
And if you've never had a homemade gnocchi before,
it is definitely worth the effort.
They do take a little time, but none of it's hard.
And if you have a houseful of relatives around
or friends that can help out, even better.
Let me show you how to put it together.
So we are first going to begin
by baking our potatoes.
So I like to use an equal portion
of Russet potatoes and sweet potatoes,
because the sweet potatoes are gonna give you
all the flavor, but the Russet potatoes
are gonna give you the better texture.
I've tried it where you do all sweet potato
and they just end up too sticky
and they don't have enough structure to them.
So I do like to do half and half.
So before they hit the oven,
we're going to rub each one
with a little bit of olive oil.
And this will help the skins come off easily
once they're baked
and will prevent it from drying out
and becoming too crackly.
And then you also want to poke each one with a fork,
just all around the potato
to allow that steam to escape as they bake.
And then we're gonna place them
in a 400 degree Fahrenheit oven,
for anywhere from 50 minutes to an hour,
just until they're nice and soft and tender.
And you do want to flip them over
every 20 minutes or so,
just to make sure that they don't get
too browned on one side,
because they'll kind of flatten out
and then kind of burn a bit,
and it'll be hard to scrape out the flesh.
Now once they're still warm,
we want to take our potatoes,
peel off the skin, cut them into quarters.
Now we're gonna use this really fun contraption
known as a ricer,
Which is a great thing to have on hand
if you like to make mashed potatoes
or really any potato dish,
because you can put them in this ricer,
squeeze the pressure of it,
and you'll see, you'll get these beautiful
rice sized bits of potato,
which is going to allow our gnocchis
to have a really nice light texture.
And then once that's done,
you're gonna make a nice well
in the center of your potatoes
and you're gonna add an egg,
a teaspoon of salt, an eighth of a teaspoon
of ground nutmeg.
And then I like to start with a cup and a half
of all-purpose flour.
And then what you wanna do
is to start to mix that up with a fork,
until a nice dough begins to form.
And you're gonna have a half a cup of flour
resting on the side.
So the recipe calls for one and a half to two cups.
I don't like to use the two cups straightaway,
because the idea is to try to get away
with the least amount of flower as possible,
so you don't end up with a tough gnocchi.
So start there,
then once the dough starts to come together,
take some of that remaining flour
and start to mix it and incorporate it
with the remaining flour,
just until you get a gnocchi dough
that is not sticky.
So those sweet potatoes will get a bit sticky,
so just keep adding flour until you can handle the dough
without it sticking to you,
then stop, don't add anymore flour.
Then you're gonna cut off a tennis ball size
bit of dough and roll it out
into a nice long snake,
about 18 inches long or so.
And then using a bench scraper,
or you could use a knife too,
you're gonna cut your gnocchis into one inch pieces.
See how easy that was?
And at this stage, you have two ways to go.
If you want to keep it real easy,
you can leave your gnocchis just like this.
Transfer them to a baking sheet
lined with parchment paper.
It helps if it's been dusted with a little bit of flour.
Or you can take this little gnocchi,
put it on top of a fork,
and roll it down the fork,
and you'll see it'll create
a really nice decorative surface.
You could try that, and if you really like
the look of it, keep going.
But it does make it a little bit more time consuming.
I also find that it makes the gnocchi
a little bit more fragile,
which when you then go to boil them,
sometimes they have a tendency of falling apart.
So really it's up to you.
Sometimes it's just easier to just cut and go.
So this dough freezes really well.
I would recommend cutting it though
and freezing the gnocchi,
as opposed to freezing the whole dough.
It doesn't do that well in the fridge
for some reason.
I think what ends up happening,
is the dough starts to get a lot of condensation
and then you have to add more flour
in order to get it to be pliable.
But I find, you've come this far,
go ahead, cut all those gnocchis,
put them on a layered sheets of parchment
on a big baking sheet,
and then pop it in your freezer until they're frozen.
At that point, you can either serve all of them
or you can portion them out
and put them in little Ziploc bags,
for individual portions.
Then when it comes time to serve,
I like to get my sauce all ready to go.
And it couldn't be easier.
And for two people, you're going to use three tablespoons
of butter, and once the butter gets nice and foamy,
we're going to add some fresh sage leaves.
I usually like to do anywhere from five to six
per person, so ten to twelve will do the trick.
And then go ahead and season
with a little salt and pepper too.
And then we're just gonna let this butter simmer
with the sage
And the sage is actually
going to be getting nice and crispy
while this is happening.
And the butter is gonna start to brown
a little bit, and that's what we want.
We don't want to take it to the point
where it starts to burn.
We just want it nice and brown,
because that's gonna create this beautiful nutty flavor.
And when mixed with that earthiness
of the sage, it is fantastic.
And then take your sauce and just place it off the heat
and let it rest there at room temperature
while you boil the gnocchi.
Now this is the thing about homemade gnocchi,
it takes like two to three minutes
and it's done.
Once it starts to rise up to the surface and float,
time to take it out, it's done.
Strain the gnocchi, get rid of all the water.
And then place it in our skillet with the butter
and then just very gently,
because these are delicate,
cover those gnocchis with all of this beautiful sage butter.
And then you can transfer it to a shallow bowl
and I like to garnish with a little bit
of freshly grated Parmesan cheese.
And you will see, you will have one spectacular
pasta dish on your hands.
It's so delicious.
I hope you guys give this one a try
and tell me what you think.
Subscribe for more quick and easy recipes
and I'll see you back here next week with another one.
Until then, bye.
(lively music)