Sweet Potato Gnocchi

Hey there!

 

Today it was again my turn to cook dinner. Since my sister and I had recently pointed out that we hadn’t had gnocchi in ages I somehow wanted to include those delicious potato dumplings into today’s meal. Also while we were in Italy we had some difficulties in finding sweet potatoes at the supermarket, even though we checked everywhere they were nowhere to be found. Based on our recent lack of sweet potatoes and gnocchi I therefore decided to jumble those two delicious things together into one tasty dish. So the menu was set, sweet potato gnocchi.

 

At first I wasn’t sure what so sauce to serve the gnocchi with but then I spotted this lonely pack of chanterelles at my local supermarket. So clearly I had to include those, I also added some champignons since there was only one pack of the chanterelles. So I was sure it would be some kind of a mushroom sauce. Then I went to Markthalle at the Viadukt in Zurich where I stumbled across those strangely coloured cherry tomatoes, which I really wanted to try. Just like this, my plan was set, sweet potato gnocchi with a mushroom, cherry tomato and balsamic sauce.

 

I was quite pleased with the outcome as well was the rest of my family, it was absolutely mouth-watering and I am definitely going to make it again. I must admit though that I chose a slightly unconventional way to shape my gnocchi. Normally you would roll the dough into a log and then cut it into 1 inch pieces. I however decided to simply use two teaspoons and drop each gnocchi individually into the boiling water (the pictures will show exactly how I did it). I personally found this method quite convenient it actually saved me from a whole lot of cleaning up work. When my mum used to make gnocchi previously we always ended up with a kitchen covered in floury dust, which can be quite a fuss to get rid of after.

 

With that being said there is really nothing holding you back from preparing this dish if you don’t even have to clean up a mess, so there you go the recipe.

 

Ingredients

 

• 3 medium sized sweet potatoes (600g)
• 1 egg
• 100g whole grain flour
• 225g chanterelle mushrooms
• 375g champignons
• 1tbs sunflower seeds
• 6 sage leaves
• 1 big clove of garlic
• 1 big red onion
• 60ml balsamic vinegar
• 300g cherry tomatoes
• olive oil
• salt
• pepper

1. Boil your sweet potatoes until they are soft, then mash them, then put aside to cool.

2. While the mash is cooling down you can start with chopping up the ingredients for the sauce. Finely chop your onion, garlic and sage leaves.

3.Slice the mushrooms into thin slices.

4.Half your cherry tomatoes.

5.Heat up some olive oil in a pan then add the onion, garlic and sage, fry until they have developed some colour and the onions are softened.

6.Add the mushrooms and fry them on a medium high heat until they have softened and lost some volume, push them to one side to make space for the cherry tomatoes.

7. Place the cherry tomatoes cut side down where you previously made some room, then add the balsamic vinegar, and let it cook over a medium heat until the balsamic vinegar has reduced quite a bit and the tomatoes have softened, then mix the tomatoes with the mushrooms, add salt and pepper to taste and then put the sauce aside.

   

 

 

 

8.Roast the sunflower seeds and put them aside.

9. So by now your sweet potato mash should have cooled down, add 1tsp of salt, the egg and the flour, mix the dough until well combined.

10. Boil some water and then salt it, now your gnocchi production can start, take two teaspoons and drop each gnocchi individually into the boiling water, the gnocchi are ready to be removed from the water when they start floating on top

11. Put the Gnocchi aside and when you finished your dough add the gnocchi as well as the roasted sunflower seeds into the sauce and heat it up again for about five minutes so your dinner is nice and hot.

Voila, delicious sweet potato gnocchi with a mushroom cherry tomato and balsamic sauce. To decorate the plates I brushed some sage leaves with olive oil, sprinkled them with sea salt and baked them for about 5-10 minutes until they were crispy.

This was truly divine and I will most likely prepare it again. Even my dad who actually isn’t much of a sweet potato lover was completely blown away and couldn’t stop telling me how good it was and trust me if something gets my dad’s approval it will definitely be amazing. So enough said, grab some lovely mushrooms, sweet potatoes and tomatoes and start cooking, enjoy!

Bisous

Fanny, the foodie