RECIPES - Pumpkin gnocchi in butter and sage, crushed amaretto biscuit and white truffle.
Here comes Autumn, the air becomes fresher, the first rains, the leaves fall, and nature’s colours change.
It almost seems like the sad description of what we are seeing or feeling but not for me.
For me, autumn is an explosion of flavours, aromas, great ingredients such as wild mushrooms, white truffles, chestnuts, persimmons and many others.
Autumn is also the season of pumpkin, and the pumpkin tortelloni, one of my favourite dishes.
I wanted to use almost the same ingredients in this recipe but create something different while maintaining the same flavours.
If you love pumpkins as I do, start cooking, this is a recipe you must try.
Ingredients for serving 4 people:
16gr white truffle
For the vegetable broth
1.5lt of water
1 red onion
1 carrot
1 potato
1 courgette
2 celery stalks
1 small bunch of parsley
Coarse salt
5 black peppercorns
Wash all the vegetables and then peal carrots, onions, and potatoes.
Cut all the vegetables into big pieces, place them in a large saucepan and cover with cold water.
Add the parsley, 3 pinches of salt and the black peppercorns.
Cover with a lid and let it stew at moderate heat for about 45 minutes.
Season more with salt if necessary and when done, put through a fine sieve and keep warm.
For the gnocchi
1 Delica pumpkin (approx 1.6kg)
1 egg
200gr flour “00”
Nutmeg
Salt
Cut the pumpkin into wedges and put it to cook in a pre-heated oven at 200 degrees for about 30 min.
Check the cooking with a fork. If it enters the pulp easily, it is cooked, if not, let give it another 5 to 10 minutes.
Once done, let it cool and remove the peel.
You should obtain more or less 600/650gr of pulp.
Put it in a blender and process it until you get a homogeneous puree.
Let it cool completely, and then add the egg, grated nutmeg and salt.
At this point, add the flour a little at a time until the mixture is thick but not too much otherwise, the gnocchi will become too hard.
There must be just enough so that they do not fall apart in cooking.
Remember that they take a little flour even when we cut them, so measure it well.
More or less, they should be 200gr.
Put some flour on the work surface, form small rolls and cut every 3cm.
At this point, you can give the gnocchi the shape of small spheres as I did or make them more traditional by rolling them on a gnocchi ridger.
Separately, melt the butter in a pan, add the sage and let it go for a few minutes over low heat.
Don’t overcook it as we don’t want to burn the butter.
Throw the gnocchi into the boiling broth, and when they come to the surface, remove them and season with the butter and sage prepared beforehand.
For the presentation (one portion)
1/2 amaretto biscuit
Put the gnocchi in a deep dish and pour over the butter with a few sage leaves.
Crush well the amaretto and sprinkle it over the gnocchi.
Finely shave 4 grams of white truffle on top.
Wine pairing
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