Yukon Gold Gnocchi

Want to hear a funny story?

This is not sweet potato gnocchi.

This is Yukon Gold gnocchi, which is really delicious but requires a few tweaks when you’re planning on making gnocchi of the sweet potato variety. Let me backtrack a little first…

When I was at the grocery store the other day, I picked up two — what I thought were — sweet potatoes. They were under the “sweet potato” sign, but I was kind of suspicious of how light and waxy the skin was. But, I threw ’em in my cart and didn’t think much more of it.

A few days later, I was inspired by Kath’s recipe for sweet potato gnocchi and decided it would be a perfect use for my potatoes, considering I already had the rest of the ingredients.

It wasn’t until I cooked the potatoes and cut them open that nope… These were definitely not sweet potatoes. They were actually Yukon Gold potatoes. By that time, though, I was already so pumped up about the idea of making gnocchi that I decided to wing it.

Adapted from Sweet Potato Gnocchi.

Ingredients:

• 2 large Yukon Gold potatoes
• 3/4 t sea salt
• 1 t rosemary, divided
• 1 t thyme, divided
• 1 egg
• 1-1/2 C whole wheat pastry flour
• 1 T butter
• Pepper, to taste

Directions:

• Scrub potatoes and pierce 10 or so times with a fork. Wrap in paper towels and microwave for four minutes. Flip potatoes and cook for four more minutes. Allow to cool in microwave for 1-2 minutes. Cut open and allow to cool for 10-15 minutes.
• Once the potatoes are cooled, peel and discard skin.
• In a large bowl, combine potato flesh, salt, 1/4 t rosemary, 1/4 t thyme and egg. Mix everything together. Add in one cup of the flour and combine. Knead in addition 1/2 C flour until dough can be formed into a tight ball.
• Turn dough out onto a well-floured surface. Cut dough into four segments. Taking one segment at a time, roll the dough out until it is about as thick as your finger. Use more flour as necessary to keep dough from breaking.
• Cut dough into ~1 in. sections. Repeat with remaining segments of dough.
• Bring a large pot (3-4 qts.) of water to a boil. Drop 1/4 of the cut dough into the water and allow to boil for 3-5 minutes until the dough rises to the top.

• Remove dough from the pot of boiling water with a slotted spoon. Immediately place in an ice bath for 1-2 minutes. Remove from ice bath and spread out on a baking sheet. Repeat process with the rest of the dough.
• When all the gnocchi is boiled, heat a large saucepan to medium-high heat. Add in butter until it melted, bubbles and is fragrant. Add in 3/4 rosemary and 3/4 thyme.

• Add in the gnocchi (don’t overcrowd the pan, only add in as much as fits at a time). Toss gnocchi with the butter, rosemary and thyme. Cook until a little toasty crust forms on both sides.
• Serve on a plate with more salt and pepper, as needed.

For winging the seasoning, this turned out incredibly! I especially loved the crusty exteriors…

Before this, I’ve only had gnocchi in restaurants, which made me think it was some fancy/complex dish to make. In truth, it’s not that tough! There are a few stages, but it’s pretty easy — plus it’s really cheap!

Gnocchi will definitely be making an appearance at our dinner table again… The question just is whether it will be sweet potato of Yukon Gold again.

Questions: Have you ever had gnocchi? Are there any restaurant dishes that you used to think were really difficult to make but later realized were easy?