Sweet Potato Gnocchi w/ Sage Brown Butter Sauce

It's possible I've found a way to like sweet potatoes. I wish I could say I've never met a tuber I didn't like; but in fact, I only like your run-of-the-mill potatoes: fingerlings, Yukon golds, Russets for baked potatoes (the kind you put in the oven for 2 hours, not the vile microwave version), purples, blues, Red Blisses -- the staples, if you will. I've always had difficulty with the odd taste of sweet potatoes.

A few Thursdays ago being Thanksgiving (and finally emerging from exhaustion induced by the back-to-back cooking class & wedding weekends), I felt compelled to make an effort at ingredients relatively traditional to holiday. But a sweet potato casserole with marshmallows (oh God! oh God!) was not going to end up on my table. And it was definitely not going to be smothered in some sort of brown sugar. Scanning the holiday editions of my cooking magazines, I discovered that both Food and Wine and Gourmet featured sweet potato gnocchi recipes. Reading both, I was much more intrigued by the Food and Wine recipe, which called for baked, not boiled, potatoes.

...I have this vivid memory of gnocchi; not of eating it, but seeing it for the first time, hearing it ordered in a restaurant. 1986: Visiting New York with Anna, having dinner with my uncle Mike and two of his friends, a pleasant Brit who managed the Jesus and Mary Chain, and a woman who was kind, graceful, and exotically sophisticated. After a night out at a club where one of his bands was having an after-concert party (and where a much older man kept trying to take my picture until I explained to him politely and firmly that I was uninterested and jailbait), we stopped off at one of Mike's favorite Italian restaurants, a few blocks away from his apartment in Tribeca. At the time, Tribeca was only beginning its DeNiro inspired revitalization, so most of Mike's friends really thought he lived in the boondocks. Her name is long forgotten, but The Sophisticated Woman ordered gnocchi. When her plate arrived at our table, I stared curiously and asked her what it was.

"Gnocchi," she said. "Potato dumplings. Would you like a bite?"

I demurred, much more interested in my ravioli. It was too foreign, too high brow for me to handle. My walnut ravioli in its brown butter sauce was as outré as I was willing to go.

I could probably count on my hands the number of times I've eaten gnocchi. It's partly because there are so few restaurants who offer it on their menu; it's partly because I don't go to the right restaurants (i.e., the ones that serve gnocchi); and partly because gnocchi is indelibly etched in my brain with The Sophisticated Woman. To my very young sixteen year old eyes, she seemed the epitome of New York verve and dash, so adult; a Borzoi to our gawky puppy state. Ordering the same dish I associate with such élan is about as incongruous to me as putting on a YSL frock. So given my disinterest and inability in finding the dish, is it any wonder then that I haven't made it until recently?

But Thanksgiving provided a nice forum in which to try; and I was also looking for a way to include sweet potatoes that didn't involve marshmallows. Bathed in a sage-infused brown butter sauce, the gnocchi did not disappoint. Aesthetically speaking though, I need to work on making them look like gnocchi; it's just hard when you don't have the right tools (or dexterity with substitute tools).

Somehow making the gnocchi took the mystique out of the dish altogether; and now I do not feel the same hesitation when considering gnocchi. Of course, there are setbacks. Last night, Greg and I were at a business dinner and had the gnocchi appetizer with sundried tomatoes. When they brought the dish, I took a bite and paused, utterly confused. I looked at Greg, who had stopped chewing.

"Greg...is it just me..."

"Oh my God," Greg said. "They've brought me mashed potato pills."

"Okay, it's not just me."

Calling what we ate "gnocchi" was definitely a laughable stretch. I do not think the Sophisticated Woman would have approved. But no matter. I'll just make another batch of the sweet potato gnocchi.

Sweet Potato Gnocchi
based on the Food and Wine recipe

4 medium Yukon Gold potatoes
2 medium sweet potatoes
2 large egg yolks
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 T salt

Preheat the oven to 375°.

Cut the Yukon golds and sweet potatoes in half, then halve them again for quarters. Spread a layer of salt on a baking sheet. Set the potatoes on the salt and bake for 1 hour. (Apparently baking potatoes on a salt layer allows the heat to circulate 360 degrees.)

Press the potatoes through a ricer into a large bowl and discard peels as you go along. Mix in 2 tablespoons of salt, the egg yolks and the flour with a fork until the dough comes together. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and gently knead it, adding more dough as necessary to prevent it from being too sticky.

Cut off a piece of the dough and roll into a rope. Cut into 1/2-inch lengths. Repeat until all of the dough is used.

To give the gnocchi their characteristic ridges (and if, like me, you lack a gnocchi board), press a piece of gnocchi onto the tines of a fork, then roll it forward. Here are demonstration pictures.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the gnocchi. When they rise to the surface, allow them to cook about 90 seconds longer, then transfer them to a bowl of ice water (to stop the cooking) and drain on a towel. Once all of the gnocchi are cooked, re-heat by adding them to a pan of warm sauce or brown butter, tossing to make sure they are coated.

Comments

[Sarah Lou]

I love gnocchi. I have made a pesto gnocchi with pumpkin seeds and one with a rosé sauce, but never have I made gnocchi from sweet potatoes and the sauce looks so good! I must try this.

[Cath]

Hi Sarah Lou! I'd love your pesto gnocchi recipe -- would you mind sharing? You can send it to my email address (just click on my name). I really was surprised by how good the sweet potato gnocchi came out -- enjoy!

[J]

hi cath, that looks so good and comforting...how i long for a plate right now! i've never had much luck making gnocchi but your gorgeous efforts have inspired me to give it another go sometime soon...

[Cath]

Hi J...I think the color came out beautifully -- but honestly, when I saw what a gnocchi is supposed to look like, I laughed at my lack of handiwork. On the other hand, they actually tasted like gnocchi; unlike my and Greg's horrifying mashed potato pill episode.

[Shelby]

Don't worry, your gnocchi looks great. The purpose of the ridges is to catch sauce, a problem with potato gnocchi where the sauce slides right off. Sweet potato gnocchi is softer, hence the problems making the ridges, but also the needlessness of the process. Most kinds of gnocchi don't have any kind of ridges (or much shape at all!) -- semolina, ricotta, Parisian -- there are probably as many types of gnocchi as there are villages in Italy. Except for the little potato pill type you had the misfortune to experience (too much flour!), they are all delicious....

[Frankie]

I tried this recipe and loved it. I had to knead in quite a bit of extra flour, but the gnocchi turned out perfect. I actually just made some pesto for it and it tasted great. Thanks for sharing this.