Gnocchi with brown sage butter

This dish could belong to a series called something like “Quicker than a ready-meal” or “Cheaper than a ready-meal”, as I think that both claims are true. However it's a very tasty dish and I really enjoy it every now and again, not just on weekdays. Gnocchi and brown sage butter are a great match, but they can be a bit heavy, so a fresh side salad is always a nice addition to those, and the components of the salad can always vary. Here is how I made today's dish.

All you need is:

A bunch of fresh sage

50 g butter

500 g gnocchi

Vegetarian pasta cheese

Mixed salad leaves

Salad dressing (Here I used my basic pomegranate molasses dressing)

The salad and salad dressing can be prepared first. Just take your favourite simple side salad, or whatever fresh ingredients you happen to have at hand.

Heat the butter in a pan at moderate temperature. The butter must not get too hot and burn. We need some browning, though. Put the sage leaves into the butter and mix occasionally. The brown sage butter is done when the butter has browned a little golden brown and the sage leaves are crispy.

At the same time cook the gnocchi in boiling water until they float on the surface. This only takes a few minutes.

Pour the sage butter onto the gnocchi, sprinkle the grated pasta cheese on the top and serve them with a side salad, and incredibly it's all done!

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Spinach gnocchi with walnut and sage butter

Gnocchi, gnocchi, gnocchi... it's almost my bane, as I always keep coming back to it and could eat truck loads of it. That is especially the case if I combine it with some sort of a sage butter and a fresh salad like in today's post! I cooked this dish in the late summer, but never got around posting it. Maybe now it can bring a tiny bit of summer back during these dark November evenings.

Ingredients for the spinach gnocchi:

800g new potatoes

3-4dl wheat flour

200g fresh spinach leaves

1 tsp salt

I think I have added the following ”warning” to all my gnocchi dishes so far as making the dough requires a certain amount of experience to know when it has the correct consistency.

Please note that the ingredient amounts are approximate and flour should be added carefully while checking the texture of the dough. Too much flour can easily ruin the dough. It's important to get the texture right, which should hold together at the boiling stage and doesn't get soggy.

This is how to get started for this dish:

I used waxy new potatoes again as I have noticed that my gnocchi tend to hold together better when they're made with new potatoes. Peel the potatoes and boil them for about 30 minutes until they are soft. Then mash them by pressing through a potato ricer into a bowl and let them cool down.

While the potatoes cook, boil the spinach leaves in water for about two minutes and drain them thoroughly afterwards by pressing all the excess fluid out. This can be done with the help of a sieve. Then quickly chop the spinach finely, with a hand mixer for example. Or you could crush it using a mortar and pestle. Set it to the side and let cool.

Add the spinach, a pinch of salt and some flour into the potato mash and mix and knead until you have a bouncy firm dough that is easy to shape.

Shape the dough into small balls with teaspoons or by hand. Another method is to make a longish thin rod and then cut small pieces out of it. If you want to you can press some decoration in with a fork or dent the gnocchi with your fingers.

Next, bring some water to the boil and put the gnocchi in; keep the water boiling heavily throughout. Boil the gnocchi until they float on the surface, which happens quite quickly (around two minutes).

I served the gnocchi this time with sage and walnut butter and a fresh watermelon hedgehog salad. It's very much fun cutting animal shapes out of fruit for salads – try it if you own whimsical cookie cutters! I made hedgehog shaped cut-outs of watermelon and combined them with lettuce, cottage cheese and a simple olive oil vinaigrette.

You can make the walnut and sage butter quickly by heating butter in a pan, adding sage leaves and frying until they are crispy and have infused the butter. Towards the end add some chopped walnut pieces to the pan. Then just mix it into the gnocchi and serve – lovely!

Stay hungry!

Your VegHog

Kabocha squash and sage pot pies

September is approaching fast, but the weather can still be quite summerly, so save this recipe for the autumn if you think it's not pie season yet. I'm going to share this with you now anyway.

Kabocha is a sweet and chestnut flavoured squash and it makes a really lovely pie filling. Therefore I decided to make this pie with it.

The pie filling:

1 kabocha squash (about 500g)

1 onion

1 garlic clove

150g mozzarella

150ml vegetable stock

1 egg

1 cup white wine

Olive oil

Fresh sage

The pastry:

150g flour

75g butter

2-4tbsp cold water

The method:

For the pastry mix the flour and soft butter together. Pinch small butter pieces among the flour until the dough reaches a bread crumb like texture. Then add the cold water and knead into a firm dough. Wrap it in cling film and let it rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Then you can start preparing the filling. Pre-heat the oven to 200C. Chop the squash into small cubes and place them on a baking tray. Be careful when cutting the squash as it can be a hard one to crack. Quarter the onion and add the onion wedges to the baking tray. Put the garlic and sage on the baking tray as well. Brush the vegetables with olive oil. Roast them in the oven for about 30 minutes. Stir them occasionally.

In the meanwhile chop the mozzarella. When the veg is roasted, lightly fry it in a pan. Chop the garlic first somewhat smaller. Add the white wine to the pan and let it evaporate. Then also add the vegetable stock and let it simmer for a while. Add the mozzarella cubes before you take the filling off heat.

Grease a cake tin or smaller oven dishes to bake the pies in. I made two smaller pies this time. Roll out the pastry thinly and cut suitable sized pieces for your dishes, also for the lids. Place the pastry into the dish, fill it with the squash filling and put the lid on them. Press the edges firmly together and brush the pies with a beaten egg. You can make some decorations on the lid by pressing with a fork.

Bake the pie at 200C for about 20-25 minutes and serve it hot.

Your VegHog

Fried new potato gnocchi with sage butter

Yesterday I posted the Garden salad with chili oil dressing and I promised to tell you how the story continued. I served the fresh salad with some homemade fried new potato gnocchi and sage butter, and it really made a delightful Saturday dinner.

Here's the recipe:

800g new potatoes

3-4dl wheat flour

100g butter

Sage leaves

Olive oil

Vegetarian pasta cheese

Peel and boil the new potatoes for the gnocchi. Once they are soft press them through a potato ricer. Add the flour and mix, then let it cool down. Once the dough is cold, check the texture and add more flour if needed. Then roll small gnocchi of the dough and set them aside. Don't worry about any irregularities, that makes them even more charming. Just make sure that the texture is bouncy and not too soft or too floury. Bring water to boil and when you have shaped all the gnocchi, heavily boil them for a couple of minutes. They'll float on the surface once they're done.

Start preparing the sage butter as well when the gnocchi is boiling. Heat the butter in a pan and add the sage leaves in there. Fry at low to moderate heat for about 10 minutes until the sage has infused the butter, the butter has slightly browned and the sage leaves have become crispy. Stir quite often to make sure that the butter doesn't burn.

I haven't fried my gnocchi before but now I decided to try it and it was indeed a lovely addition. Fry the boiled gnocchi in some olive oil for a while so that some parts of them become golden brown. I kept the pan quite hot and constantly kept stirring them. Mix them with the sage butter, sprinkle vegetarian pasta cheese on them and serve. Make the garden salad to accompany if you like and serve with a nice white wine.

Your VegHog