Sweet potato gnocchi with buttery sage and hazelnut sprinkles

Serves 4 Starters and mains

Advertisement

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C/ 160C F/Gas 4. Rinse the sweet potatoes in cold water and prick the skins in a few places with a skewer. Put on an oven tray and bake for 1 hour, or until a skewer goes right through. Peel off the skins as soon as they are cool enough to handle.

Put a large pan of salted water on to boil. Remove any black bits from the potatoes and roughly chop into a processor, add scoops of the goat’s cheese and the egg yolks and whizz to a smooth purée. Tip into a bowl and add the cornmeal, chestnut flour, sea salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper. Without overworking, gently fold together to form a dough.

Dust a board with cornmeal and cut the dough into 4 pieces. Roll a piece at a time into a sausage shape, 24cm long, and cut into 12 pieces, so you end up with 48 pieces.

As the water boils, add 12 gnocchi pieces and turn down the heat to a simmer for a few minutes, until they float to the surface. Scoop them out with a slotted spoon and arrange on a kitchen paper- lined tray to drain. Continue rolling and cooking the remainder in the same way. They can now be fried right away or kept chilled for a few hours or overnight.

When ready to serve, heat the oil and butter together and fry the sage for a few seconds until crisp but not coloured. Pour the buttery, sage-flavoured oil into a bowl to reserve for serving.

Put half the oil and butter for frying the gnocchi in the frying pan and fry half a batch at a time for 1 1⁄2-2 minutes on each side, until golden and crisp. Once they are all are fried in the same way, put them all back in the pan to reheat

Crunch up the hazelnuts with the side of a heavy cook’s knife and crumble 4 of the fried sage leaves into them. Add to the reserved butter and oil and serve over the gnocchi with the rest of the whole sage leaves. Shave the Italian hard cheese over each serving using a vegetable peeler.