Homemade pumpkin gnocchi

• 20 minutes to prepare • 45 minutes to cook • Serves 4

Giovedì gnocchi - II

 

This easy pumpkin gnocchi recipe is - true to its name - easy to make.
Pillowy soft inside, golden brown on the outside, and bathed in a classic sage and butter sauce.
Just use a wooden spoon to mix mashed pumpkin, flour, and egg, turn it out, no kneading, roll into ropes then cut.And if you want to make your gnocchi look like what you get at restaurants, all you have to do is use a fork to press lines onto the cut side of the gnocchi.
Worth the effort? I think so. It creates ridges which = more crispy golden surface + the butter sauce clings to it better.

I shared a plain Gnocchi recipe few months ago. I really wanted to take the basic gnocchi up a notch so I decided to make this a pumpkin gnocchi.
I wasn’t 100% sure I could make it work, and truth be told it took quite a few batches to get it exactly right. I even dragged my mother in for recipe testing
I am so glad we persevered though, because in all honesty, the pumpkin totally makes this gnocchi. Besides making it a beautiful bright orange colour that looks so spectacular when tinged with golden brown, it adds sweetness and moisture into it.
You can’t actually taste the pumpkin – much like you can’t actually taste potato in classic potato gnocchi – but you know it’s there.

Oh! And just one more thing I want to mention – you don’t need an insane amount of butter to make the sauce for this gnocchi. In fact, I think you’ll be surprised how little is required. Just enough to coat the gnocchi and have some drizzled on the plate.

Here are ingredients for the 4-serving recipe:

 

250 g red potatoes
350 g pumpkin
160 g flour 00
1 egg white
nutmeg powder
salt

1. Preheat oven to 180°
2. Roll the pumpkin and potatoes in foil. The reason we roll them in foil is so that you can trap the heat close to them and cook them evenly
3. Place pumpkin and potatoes in foil in a baking tray covered with salt. Let cook for 45 minutes at 180° rotating after 30 minutes. Use a fork to pierce the potatoes to see how soft they are
4. Put the flour onto a clean surface
5. Using a peeler or your fingers, remove the skin from the potatoes and the pumpkin. Mash them, still hot, and let them sit for a few minutes
6. Add the salt and nutmeg powder and mix well. Make a well in the center of the potatoes and place the egg white into it. Whisk the egg briefly. Then, using your hands, gently mix it into the potatoes until evenly distributed
7. Working quickly and carefully, knead the dough. Slice the dough into 4 parts. Roll out 1 part into a long rope, about 2 cm wide, cutting in half and working with 1 half at a time if the rope is becoming too long. Slice the rope into 1-cm squares and set aside on a lightly floured surface. Repeat with the remaining dough
8. To cook them, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and add the gnocchi in batches, stirring gently once or twice to ensure they are not sticking. Boil until they float to the surface; after another 15-30 seconds in the water, remove and season them with your sauce
9. As for the sauce, well, I could have gotten more creative but the fact is, sage and butter sauce is always my first choice for gnocchi. It’s simple but luxurious, and lets the pumpkin gnocchi shine through.Let’s make sure we do it justice by making the sauce using a great quality butter

Nutrition Facts are listed for this recipe in the table below. Data is provided per serving.