Gluten-Free Butternut Gnocchi

Heat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius, convection.

Wet the potatoes, then place them on a roasting tray, and sprinkle them generously in salt. Cut the butternut in half, lengthways, remove the seeds with a spoon, and roast cut side down on a roasting tray with the potatoes until soft. About 40 – 50 minutes. If you want to roast the butternut seeds, rinse off the yellow stringy flesh, toss them in a little oil and salt and roast until golden brown (about 10-15 minutes).

Once you can pierce the butternut and potatoes easily with a knife, remove them from the oven. Peel the butternut. Place the butternut flesh in the center of a clean dish towel. Press towel over the butternut to remove excess moisture. Get out as much liquid as you can.

Mash the butternut with a fork, or stick blender. Measure out 1 ¼ cups roasted butternut puree. Peel the warm potatoes and mash them with a fork or potato ricer until just starting to smooth out (it will yield about 1 cup of chunky mash). Be careful not to mash the potatoes too much, or they can go gluey.

Place the potatoes, butternut, salt, nutmeg and flours into a bowl. Gently incorporate the potatoes and butternut into the flours. When just starting to come together, turn the mixture out onto a surface and use a knife or bench scraper to cut, and push the dough together. Once just mixed, the dough should be soft like playdough, but not very sticky. If the dough is sticky work in 2Tbsp gluten free flour at a time, until the dough is the texture of playdough. Cut the dough into 4 balls.

Scatter the surface with more gluten free flour. Roll the dough into long logs about 1,5cm thick, then use a sharp knife or bench scraper to cut the logs into 2 cm long gnocchi. Repeat until all the gnocchi have been shaped.

Bring a casserole of salted water to the boil. Add the gnocchi to the water and cook them for about 3 minutes or until they all float to the surface. Drain the gnocchi and reserve ¼ cup of the cooking water.

Place a frying pan on a medium heat. Add the light olive oil and once warm, add the sage and fry until crispy. Remove the sage to drain on a side plate. Add the drained gnocchi to the pan and fry in an even layer (you might need to crisp your gnocchi in two batches depending on the size of your frying pan). Once golden brown, add the grated garlic, lemon zest, and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice. Add in a little of the gnocchi water to loosen the sauce, then season everything with salt and pepper to taste. Adding more lemon juice as needed to balance the sauce.

Plate up the gnocchi and sauce, scattering over the crisp sage and hazelnuts/pumpkin seeds. Serve Immediately.

Image and recipe by The Culinary Cartel