Pumpkin Gnocchi in Brown Butter Sage Sauce
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Servings: 3-4
Ingredients:
For the gnocchi dough:
300g pumpkin purée*
200g all-purpose flour
100g cottage cheese*
1 egg
1/2 tsp kosher salt or half the amount if using table salt
1/8 tsp black pepper
1/8 tsp nutmeg
For the brown butter sage sauce:
3 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic
A good-sized handful of fresh sage (about 30 leaves)
To serve:
Freshly grated parmesan or pecorino romano
Freshly ground black pepper
Directions:
Weigh out 300g of pumpkin purée and set it in a colander wrapped in cheesecloth or a few paper towels and allow some of the liquid to drain off, this should take about 10 minutes.
While the pumpkin is draining, weigh out the cottage cheese and blend in a food processor until smooth.
Add the pumpkin purée, blended cottage cheese, flour, egg, salt, nutmeg, and black pepper to a bowl and gently bring the dough together.
Turn the dough out on a lightly floured work surface and bring it together with your hand, again being very gentle with the dough (the less you work the dough the softer and more pillowy your gnocchi). It is important to note that you want to use as little additional flour as possible while you work, if you add a lot of additional flour the gnocchi will be dense.
Once the dough has come together, flatten it into a disk and cut it into 5 or 6 strips.
Roll each strip out until it is about 1.5 cm or 2/3 inches thick.
Cut the strip into 1.5 cm or 2/3 inch-long pieces.
Repeat with all the strips.
Once you have cut all the strips into pieces you can either boil the gnocchi right away or you can roll each piece on a gnocchi roller or along the tines of a fork to create little ridges on the gnocchi (these ridges are little grooves to hold sauce more efficiently).*
Boil gnocchi in a pot of salted water until they float to the surface.
Drain the gnocchi, reserving about a cup of the cooking water.
While the gnocchi is boiling put a wide skillet on the stove set to medium heat.
Add the olive oil and 2 tablespoons of the butter to the pan and while monitoring it allow the butter to slowly brown, keeping a close eye on it because once the butter browns it can burn quickly.
Add sliced garlic to the browned butter and saute until fragrant about 1 minute.
Then add the boiled gnocchi to the pan.
Sauté for a few minutes, allowing the gnocchi to get lightly browned on the sides.
Once your gnocchi has taken on a little color, add the fresh sage leaves, the last tablespoon of butter, and a few tablespoons of the starchy cooking water to loosen up the sauce.
Taste for seasoning and add salt if necessary.
Sauté in pan for another minute or two.
Serve the gnocchi with freshly ground black pepper and a sprinkling of freshly grated cheese.
Enjoy!
Additional Notes:
*For the pumpkin purée, you can use boiled or steamed fresh pumpkin or canned pumpkin, both work.
*I use cottage cheese in the gnocchi because it is low in fat and high in protein but if you prefer you can substitute the cottage cheese with ricotta.
*The gnocchi look like this once they are cut and rolled along the tines of a fork.
