Pumpkin or Sweet Potato gnocchi and mushroom sauce

By andreajayros

Ingredients

• 2 cups pumpkin puree (fresh or canned) or 2 cups mashed sweet potato
• 1 flax egg
• 2 to 3 cups 00 or All-Purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• Grated, fresh nutmeg, about 1/4 teaspoon

Details

Servings 4
Preparation time 30mins
Cooking time 45mins
Adapted from parsleysagesweet.com

Preparation

Step 1

Spoon the pumpkin puree into a strainer lined with cheesecloth over a bowl, overnight or for at least 4 hours (I strain it overnight..about 12 hours), covered in the refrigerator.
Once drained of as much liquid as possible, cook it down (reduce it) in a pot on the stove top until thicker and darker in color..like the top of a baked pumpkin pie. Large bubbles will open and pop (burp) when it's ready or close to ready. This step will really concentrate the pumpkin flavor in the gnocchi. Set aside and let cool.

If making sweet potato gnocchi, puree the cooked sweet potato in a food processor or blender, then strain it, for at least 4 hours, in a cheesecloth lined fine-meshed strainer as you would the pumpkin. However, the sweet potato doesn't need to be cooked down, so one step you can skip.

Combine the flax egg, nutmeg, salt and cooled pumpkin puree until uniform.

Add enough of the flour into the pumpkin puree combination to form a soft dough that is not too tacky to work with. *

Knead the dough for several minutes, until you have a nice, smooth ball. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and let it rest for about 20 minutes before proceeding.

Cut the ball into 4 equal pieces, then roll each piece into a long thin cylinder, about ½ inch thick.

Cut the cylinders into ½ inch pieces. Roll pieces in flour, shaking off any excess, if needed. (I keep a bit of the bench flour in a pile at the edge of my work space, just in case)

Roll the pieces over a gnocchi board or a fork to give them the ridges.

Cook the gnocchi in salted boiling water in small batches until it floats to the surface, about 2-3 minutes. Strain gnocchi and shake off any excess water.

Toss gnocchi in pan with creamy mushroom sauce, then serve with julienne sage.

*Important - If it's humid outside, flour absorption is at its worst, so I suggest not worrying about rolling the dough into coils and cutting - just cut pieces from the tacky dough, roll them in a little flour, and proceed with the fork shaping. OR, just cut off pieces and throw into salted, boiling water immediately. There's nothing worse than heavy, leaden gnocchi, so never continue to add more flour if too tacky. Never exceed 3 cups flour in this recipe..unless you like eating silly putty dumplings!