When the mood for gnocchi struck earlier this week, I decided to forgo the traditional gnocchi recipe I made before and picked up two sweet potatoes. I am a big fan of pasta dishes with just a hint of sweetness, which I think goes back to my childhood dinners at Little Venice where they add applesauce and sugar to their tomato sauce and cover the dining room walls with old oil paintings. The sugar and paintings are in no way connected, but imagine eating slightly sweet manicotti in a large wood paneled room with antique shop portraits staring down at you. A true Binghamton dining experience.
Although sweet potatoes are relatives of your standard russet potato, their flesh doesn’t behave quite the same way when cooking. Because of this I went on a hunt for a good sweet potato gnocchi recipe to guide the way.
A few quick searches turned up this easy recipe at Epicurious with a sage and brown butter sauce. I halved the recipe and ended up with enough for 4 main course servings, but the gnocchi and brown butter are so rich that I recommend this as a side dish.
After roasting the potatoes for an hour (rather than putting them in the microwave), I mashed them in a bowl and added all of the ingredients to make the dough.
I rolled the dough into long strips, cut them into 1/2″ pieces, and then lightly pressed them with a fork. This dough was a little stickier than the gnocchi I made with russet potatoes, but extra flour on the cutting board did the trick.
The boiled gnocchi.
After the unsalted butter simmered in a skillet for about 5 minutes, I added the sage, and then added the gnocchi. Be very careful of your hands while doing this because the butter will pop and sizzle.
Once the gnocchi were heated through, I placed them in a bowl and garnished with a few sage leaves.
Looks amazing, oh my god