Green Gnocchi
This gnocchi is beautifully soft and pillowy and covered in glossy brown butter sauce. Surprisingly simple to make and so good.
It’s cavolo nero season and I just can’t get enough. It’s rich and full of flavour and works so well with so many things. Delicious pan-fried with a little pancetta and red onion and stirred through pasta, or whizzed up into a lovely sauce with gnocchi, wilted into stews, I love it.
In America, I think it's called dinosaur kale which I kind of love and I think is a better name!
This recipe includes a beautifully luscious brown butter sauce which, if done right, emulsifies to cover the gnocchi in a thick sauce that has a nutty, savoury flavour. Covered in parmesan, you can't beat this big bowl of gnocchi. As it is packed with green cavolo nero, it has more nutritional value than a standard bowl of gnocchi and feels like a more complete meal.
Plus it looks gorgeous with the green gnocchi in the melty buttery sauce. And we do eat with our eyes first, after all! This Brown Butter and Crispy Sage Gnocchi is another example of a dish where we eat with ours eyes - it is so crisp and golden.
A note on ingredients:
Cavolo nero - a type of Italian cabbage, it's such a dark green it's almost black - hence the name "nero" which means black in Italian. It is full of goodness: vitamins A, C, K and full of good fibre. If you can't find it, curly kale should work similiarly.
Potatoes - necessary for any gnocchi recipe, it's the base of these Italian 'dumplings'. Using Maris Piper potatoes which have a fluffier interior texture means that you can achieve a better texture with the final gnocchi.
Parmesan - salty, savoury, cheesy. Hard to replicate elsewhere, Parmesan has a unique way of rounding out any pasta dish. With pasta water and butter, it also helps emulsify everything into a luxurious sauce. You may also love this four-cheese gnocchi if you are a cheese lover!
00 flour - also known as pasta flour, it is different to plain flour in that 00 flour is made from durum wheat, which is not the case with plain flour. It means that with plain flour, you create stretchier gluten strands and will create more chew. Since we want these gnocchi light and soft, chewy is not ideal!
Butter - essential to emulsify this type of sauce, using salted butter is the best way to go! This recipe browns the butter. This means that once melted, you keep it on the heat until the milk solids in the butter (the separated white flecks once it's melted) toast leaving a nutty flavour and golden hue. Just keep it moving and be patient on medium heat as you don't want the milk solids to burn, which can happen all too fast!
Sage - who doesn't love sage with brown butter? They are best friends. Highly recommend this wintery, delicious herb. If you can't find fresh sage to crisp up, use dried and just add slowly and taste as it can sometimes have a very strong flavour! Try ½ tsp.
Garlic - a staple of Italian cooking, garlic gives this dish flavour and punch but cooked in the brown butter sauce, it's not strong and overpowering.
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 60 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 20 minutes
- Yield: Serves 4
Ingredients
Gnocchi:
1.5kg Maris piper potatoes
250g Cavolo nero
2 eggs
250g pasta flour (also known as 00 flour)
Sauce:
75g butter
10 fresh sage leaves
2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely sliced
salt and pepper
juice of ½ lemon
generous handful of grated parmesan
Instructions
- Bake the potatoes at 200 degrees for around an hour until a skewer goes straight through.
- Strip the leaves from the Cavolo nero and add them to a frying pan with a very small amount of water. Pop the lid on and let it steam until soft. Blitz in a food processor to a smooth paste. Once smooth you can add the eggs, and then blitz again.
- While the potatoes are still hot but cool enough to handle, scoop out the insides and pass them through a sieve. Weigh out 1kg of the soft potato.
- To the potato add the blitzed Cavolo nero and the flour. Mix it together and then Roll into thin sausage shapes, using a little flour to stop them from sticking, then chop into 1-inch pieces to make your gnocchi.
- Cook the gnocchi in salted boiling water for a few minutes. You’ll know they are done as they float to the top
- For the brown butter sauce, melt the butter in a frying pan. Once melted cook for 2-3 minutes until it starts to turn brown and smells a bit nutty. Add the sage leaves and cook for a minute, then the garlic and cook for 30 seconds. Now add a few tablespoons of starchy pasta water. Toss the pan until the sauce emulsifies – should look lovely and glossy. Add the gnocchi. Shake to coat, season and add more pasta water until you have the right consistency. Season with the lemon juice and add a generous handful of grated parmesan. Toss again and serve.
- Scoop the gnocchi onto a plate and drizzle the sauce over the top. Add more parmesan and enjoy!
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