Sweet potato gnocchi with mushrooms and spinach

My first real memory of gnocchi is from around ten years ago, when my sister made a special meal for my family – eggplant involtini followed by gnocchi with napoletana sauce. She didn’t like the gnocchi, she said they were slimy, but I thought they were nice, and that was that.

Six years later, I was a chef and my boss and I were catering for a big fancy dinner. One of the items on the menu was sautéed gnocchi with spinach and bacon. My boss made such a drama of how careful I had to be when making the gnocchi that I panicked and found other things to do, leaving him with the gnocchi. The dish turned out to be delicious and a big hit.

One year ago, I invited my best friend round for dinner and, after a glass of wine, decided to not only attempt gnocchi for the first time, but to play with the idea, too. So instead of traditional gnocchi, I made sweet potato gnocchi, sautéed with mushrooms and spinach. It was delicious and a big hit. It was also surprisingly easy to make, even with all the glasses of wine consumed during the cooking process.

About one month ago, I made the same sweet potato gnocchi with mushrooms and spinach for a function, along with several other dishes. Apparently the gnocchi disappeared first. Lucky for me, I had made and frozen extra gnocchi, and could make the dish again for dinner the other night.

The moral of the story: gnocchi may take a bit of time to make, but they’re easy, delicious, and you can always make a big batch and freeze what you don’t need to use later. I’d recommend making some gnocchi.

Truly terrible photo courtesy of my non-existent skills.

For the gnocchi:

4 medium sweet potatoes

2 medium floury potatoes

1 egg

Flour – I used cake flour because that’s what I had at the time

Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 180 C.

Bake the sweet potatoes and potatoes for 1 – 2 hours, until they start to smell slightly caramelized and begin to go quite hard on the outside. Remove from the oven and cool enough so that they can be handled.

Cut the sweet potatoes and potatoes in half lengthwise and scoop the flesh out into a large bowl. Mash the warm potato mixture with a fork or masher – if it doesn’t seem very smooth, press the mixture through a sieve using the back of a spoon.

Once the mixture is very smooth, add the egg and lots of salt and pepper, and mix thoroughly. Now add a large handful of flour and mix carefully, using big movements, and keep an eye on the consistency of the dough. If it looks like the dough will be firm enough to roll out, mix till just combined and roll out. If not, continue adding handfuls of flour, mixing carefully all the while, until the dough looks like it is firm enough to roll out. Be careful not to add too much flour, and don’t overwork the dough.*

When the dough is ready, sprinkle your countertop with more flour, and also sprinkle a large baking sheet with flour.

Divide the dough into six pieces, and place one piece on the floured countertop. Dust the piece of dough with more flour, and then use your hands to roll the dough into a long rope, about the thickness of a thumb. Use a very sharp knife to cut the rope of dough into little dumplings, cutting at a diagonal, and making every piece around 2cm long. Place the gnocchi on the prepared baking sheet.

Repeat the process with the remaining pieces of dough.

(At this point, you can freeze some or all of the gnocchi by placing the baking sheet straight into the freezer until the gnocchi are hard, and then tossing them into a freezer-safe bag. These can be cooked straight from the freezer – just toss the frozen gnocchi into rapidly boiling, well-salted water.)

Now fill a large pot with water and a teaspoon of salt, and bring to the boil. When the water is boiling rapidly, drop the gnocchi in one by one, about twenty at a time. After two or three minutes they’ll start bobbing to the surface, which is the sign that they’re cooked through. Remove them from the boiling water with a slotted spoon. I toss the cooked gnocchi with a little olive oil before once cooked, and while the other gnocchi are cooking, to prevent them sticking to one another.

You can add any sauce or vegetables to the gnocchi once cooked and eat them straight away, or you can sauté them in olive oil to a bit of colour and texture, which is what I like to do.

Sweet potato gnocchi with mushrooms and spinach

Sautéed sweet potato gnocchi – half recipe

250g button mushroom, sliced thickly

30ml brandy

Sprig of thyme

10g dried porcini, soaked in 50ml boiling water

1 clove garlic, crushed

250ml cream **

50g grated Parmesan

250g baby spinach

Splash of lemon juice

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Olive oil

Place a cast iron pan over medium heat, add about a tablespoon of olive oil and then the sliced mushrooms.

Cook the mushrooms, moving them around now and then, until they’ve released their water. Turn the heat up and continue cooking till the mushrooms are well browned.

Add the brandy and cook off the alcohol for a few seconds, then add the thyme, porcini with the soaking water, and garlic. Give it all a good stir and simmer for a few minutes, until the water has mostly cooked away.

Lower the heat a little and add the cream and Parmesan, stir it all together, and simmer for five or ten minutes, until the cream has thickened.

Add the spinach and stir through till wilted, then remove from the heat and season with salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

Add the gnocchi and toss until it’s all well mixed, and serve with more grated Parmesan.

*This is the bit that made me panic and abandon gnocchi-making during my second confrontation with them. It’s not that complicated – just be slow and gentle.

**I have, with success, attempted to lighten up this recipe by replacing the cream with fat free yoghurt. Use 150 – 200ml yoghurt instead of 250ml, add the yoghurt and parmesan along with the spinach and don’t simmer, remove immediately from the heat. Then proceed as usual.