Fresh pumpkin gnocchi

Sorry, I wrote this yesterday and seemingly forgot to press 'publish'!

Recipe adapted from Gennaro Contaldo's recipe on BBC food.

We're only into day two and I've already failed my dad's challenge (see yesterday's post). I had high hopes today of testing my Italian in a gelateria (can you tell I woke up feeling peckish?) but they were quickly dashed when I remembered that I had to stay at home to wait for a package to be delivered. Today was the third delivery attempt so I guessed I was probably on my last chance before I'd have to drive to Milan to pick it up. "Ooh Milan" I hear you say "must be designer clothes..." Nope, nothing of the sort, it's power socket adaptors sent over by my dad from England. Before you tut, yes I did bring an adaptor with me, but they seem to have three different types of socket here, none of which fit my 'European adaptor'. Well, I tell a lie, one does but it's in the bathroom and I feel I may be testing my luck a little.

Feeling a little down about not being able to go out and explore again, I decided to spend most of my morning cooking (no surprises there then). After a few morning tasks (laundry, beds, etc.) I set to work on this little recipe. I didn't actually plan to spend my entire morning cooking, but I somewhat over-roasted my pumpkin the first time round and had to start again. I do actually love it when roasted veggies go a little caramelised, but gnocchi are supposed to be light, fluffy little pillows, not black speckled bbq balls... or maybe I was actually on to something there! In my defence, Gennaro's recipe just called for 'roasted pumpkin', rather than actually explaining how best to roast it (I've explained how I did it - the second time round - below). Gennaro also called for a pumpkin puree style sauce to go with this, but I personally just found that to be just too much pumpkin, so I served it with liberal helpings of parmesan and really good extra virgin olive oil instead. Pumpkin itself can be pretty sweet, especially when roasted, so I found that the parmesan gave it a pretty essential salty balance, so don't leave it out.

 

 

Serves 4

700g raw pumpkin (weight without skin/seeds/pappy centre)
300 ml water
1 veg stock cube
1 branch of rosemary, finely chopped
4 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
Pinch of salt
Approx 600g flour - I used spelt flour
Lots of parmesan and extra virgin olive oil to serve

• Cut off approx. 100g of the pumpkin and cut it into dice (about 1cm/1cm)
• Add to a frying pan with 2 tbsp. oil, rosemary and a pinch of salt.
• Sauté until cooked through and slightly crispy. The original recipe suggests this should only take a few minutes, but I found they needed about 10-15 mins to ensure they were fully cooked through. Set the pan aside once they're ready.
• Meanwhile, cut the remaining pumpkin into chunks and roast for about 20 - 30 mins (at about 190 degrees) with a drizzle of oil and a pinch of salt - you want them cooked through, but not charred.
• Blitz this pumpkin into a puree.
• Add the pumpkin puree, water and stock to a large saucepan and bring to the boil.
• Turn off the heat and keep stirring as you add the flour (not all at once) until it begins to come together as a dough. It should still be very sticky (much wetter than pasta/pastry dough) so don't add too much flour or else they'll be really heavy once cooked.
• Generously flour your worktop and hands and separate the dough into about 6 pieces to roll into long sausages of about 1 - 2 cm in width and depth.
• Dust with flour again and cut into pieces of about 1 - 2 cm in length (depending on how big you want them to be).
• As you chop, keep the gnocci separate from each other and dusted with flour, they are prone to sticking together.
• Once you're ready to eat, bring your small pumpkin pieces back up to temperature and bring a large pan of water to the boil.
• Throw in your gnocci (if you haven't got a huge pan, you may need to do this in 2 batches) and they're cooked once they float up to the surface (this should only take a minute or two).
• Remove the gnocci with a slotted spoon, combine with the pumpkin and serve with lots of parmesan and good quality extra virgin olive oil if you can.