Seeking Sweet potato gnocchi recipe

[dsabah]

Hi:

I know it's early, but I'm already planning for Thanksgiving. Every year, I try to do something a little different with sweet potatoes.

I'd be so grateful for sweet potato gnocchi recipes. I'd also appreciate good sauce ideas -- I was thinking a simple sage brown butter, but am not set on it.

Thanks much.

Debra Sabah Press

[slkinsey]

Welcome to the Gull, Debra.

Sounds like you don't really need a recipe. Just use your favorite potato gnocchi recipe, maybe include some nutmeg, and serve in sage/brown butter. Sounds like a good plan to me.

The only comment I have is that gnocchi really need to me made a la minute unless you plan to bake them. Plus, they need to be eaten fairly quiclly after being prepared or they aren't so good, and they are not good as leftovers. Considering that, I am not sure they're a good choice for Thanksgiving.

[spoonbread]

Hi!

Ok, sweet potato gnocchi is different to make than regular potato gnocchi becuase it has a higher water content. The standard potato gnochi calls for 6 potatoes, 2 eggs, 1 1/2 cup flour, a pinch of nutmeg, a pinch of baking soda and salt( this is what I use, but recipes vary) If you use this recipe and sub sweet potatoes, you have to pan fry the potatoes, no oil, dry in a saute pan to evaporate the water. Or you can use half sweet potatoes, half regular potatoes. The color isn't as pretty, but it works.

As far as ideas, brown butter and sage is great, or a cream sauce is good. Gorgonzola and fresh thyme go well with sweet potatoes, so a cream sauce made with those will work great. Also a basil- sage pesto works as well.

Cooking them ahead of time is easy. When the gnocchis are ready, put into boiling water until it floats. Pull out and put into an ice water bath. When cooled, pull out of iced water and place in a bowl and toss in a bit of oil, just enough to caot, so they don't stick together. Cover with plastic and put into the fridge until you are ready to use them.

Aw Heck, here's a link....

Sweet Potato Gnocchi

Hope this helps........

Edited April 1, 2004 by spoonbread (log)

[JosephB]

Welcome to the Gull, Debra.

Sounds like you don't really need a recipe. Just use your favorite potato gnocchi recipe, maybe include some nutmeg, and serve in sage/brown butter.

Are you so sure that sweet potatoes can be simply substituted for boiling potatoes?

[slkinsey]

Sounds like you don't really need a recipe.  Just use your favorite potato gnocchi recipe, maybe include some nutmeg, and serve in sage/brown butter.

Are you so sure that sweet potatoes can be simply substituted for boiling potatoes?

Boiling potatoes, maybe not, but certainly for baking potatoes. I'd just bake them until fully cooked, which should solve spoonbread's moisture problem, rice them in a foodmill, add a few egg yolks, a few gratings of nutmeg and enough flour to bind it.

Most people aren't such purists as we when it comes to potato gnocchi (you and I like to use boiling potatoes and no eggs), using starchy baking potatoes and eggs.

[fredbram]

It might depend on which type of sweet potatoes you use. The very orange ones, garnet yams I think they call them in the stores, definitely have too much water, even when baked.

But I wonder if the quite starchy white sweet potatoes would be a direct substitute. You wouldn't have any color to speak of though.

[APPS411]

Just a few notes. I went through this same ordeal last year for thanksgiving trying to come up w/ the best textured and taste sweet potatoe gnocchi.

I noticed that the great amount of water content (even if split w/ regular potato) required too much flour to bind and resulted in a very chewy gnochi. Also the taste was severely mutted by the addition of all the flour.

I tried a few other versions that came out great. Both butternut squash and acorn sqaush work much better.

Roast off the squash on the half shell w/ a little s&p, nutmeg and butter. Scoop out of skin and place in a strainer over a bowl in the fridge to drain off excess water. This didn't work w/ the sweet potatos. They tended to retain their water.

With the sqaush I mixed 2 parts sqaush w/ 1 part mashed idaho potato, then add a little egg (roughly 1/4 egg to total of 1 cup potato mixture), season and start adding flour till it comes together.

Hope my trial and error helps. That reminds me, I have a bag of acorn gnochi in the freezer.

[APPS411]

My market didn't have any of the yellow sweet potatos, only the orange ones. Good call fredman, they will probably work better due to the dryer starch content.

They more closely resemble the texture of acorn which worked best for me.

[slkinsey]

Well... it would be important to make sure it was a sweet potato and not a yam. Although the darker sweet potatoes are moister than the light ones, when baked they seemed plenty dry enough to me. Baking them split in half should anyway be able to control the moisture issue.

[fredbram]

As the epicurious links mention, true yams are not often sold in the US. It is more a matter of which type of sweet potato you use, even though some of them are sold as yams. I still would have doubts about using the dark orange flesh sweet potatoes, even baked, because of the moisture content.

[spoonbread]

Baking is the best way to go. It does help with the moisture and it retains better color and flavor. In my experience, it still had alot of moisture and, yes, just adding more flour made them chewy rather than light as gnocchis should be. The method I described worked for me, as I had it on the fall menu at the resort I was a chef at. They came out perfect on color, texure and flavor. But, hey, everyone has a different method that works for them.

[FoodMan]

I tried this recipe a while back and it worked well.

Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Apple Cider Sauce

Elie

[podio]

hi!

I don't have a specific recipe for gnocchi (I learned how to make them from my grandmother, and her recipe is more or less all by feel). But I do have a nice suggestion that worked very well for me during the holidays one season. You can use left-over mashed sweet potatoes (even though they're full of stuff like butter, and whatever else you like to put in them, I usually add a bit of nutmeg and whatever else tickles my fancy at the moment) and substitute them for the regular potatoes. The dough also usually has a much better texture if you do all of the mixing by hand. Just keep in mind your menu when you make the mashed sweet potates so that you have enough for the next day.

[dsabah]

Thanks so much for the hints. It must have been such a treat to learn from your grandmother.

I've made gnocchi from regular potatoes before. I was wondering whether it's necessary to change the flour ratio when you use sweet potatoes because they have a different starch content.

Also, I've never used ricotta in gnocchi, but have seen a sweet potato recipe that calls for ricotta. I imagine the ricotta would make the gnocchi very light, but I don't want to lose any of that wonderful sweet potato flavor.

Have you ever made gnocchi with ricotta?

Thanks so much.