Woodfired Gnocchi with Sage & Blue Cheese
Woodfired Gnocchi with Sage & Blue Cheese – another delicious vegetarian dish from the woodfired oven. Just imagine a piled high bowl of golden brown crunchy-on-the-outside soft-in-the-middle light potato nuggets in sizzling butter, savoury sage and melting salty blue cheese. Yes – that’ll do nicely! All the work is done in advance so this is a put-together-at-the-last-minute kind of dish. Also good as a side to a plain piece of roast or grilled meat.
The recipe is below and the video for this week’s #woodfiredweekly is here
Woodfired Gnocchi with Sage & Blue Cheese – Ingredients
1kg floury potatoes, all a similar size
200g 00 flour
Salt & Pepper
2 egg yolks
Small bunch fresh thyme, finely chopped
60g butter
30ml olive oil
60g blue cheese
Woodfired Gnocchi with Sage & Blue Cheese – Oven State, recommended equipment etc
Woodfired Gnocchi with Sage & Blue Cheese – Method
1. Boil the potatoes in their skins until tender right through. Strain and when you can handle them, peel off the skin. Mash them until they are perfectly smooth – ideally through a ricer.
2. Put the mashed potatoes on a board and add the flour and egg yolks. Season well. Carefully mix everything together and knead until smooth. Divide the dough into 4 and roll out to a thin sausage. Cut off 2-3cm pieces and chill for 30 minutes.
3. Bring a large wide pan of salted water to the boil. Poach the potato gnocchi in batches for about a minute at a time until firmed up and drain.
4. When you’re ready to cook the gnocchi, put a frying pan in the woodfired oven to heat up. add the oil, butter and sage and when that’s sizzling, add a quarter of the gnocchi. Spoon the buttery mixture over the top and bake in the oven until the gnocchi are golden brown and crispy on the outside and heated right through.
5. Break the blue cheese into small pieces and scatter over the top of the golden-brown gnocchi. Let the cheese start to melt and serve at once.
6. We freeze the rest of the gnocchi – flat on a try first before putting them in a plastic box and then cook them gently in the buttery mixture from frozen.
Woodfired Gnocchi with Sage & Blue Cheese – Alternatives
Change the herbs you use – thyme and parsly both work well and rosemary too but not too much as that can be overwhelming.
Change the cheese – it doesn’t have to be blue cheese if you don’t like it; use whatever you prefer.
Throw in a few bacon lardons or shredded ham to cook with the gnocchi in the buttery mixture.
Serve with a crispy green salad or a sharp tomato salad to add some freshness and texture to an admittedly pretty rich dish.
Woodfired Gnocchi with Sage & Blue Cheese – Wine Suggestion
Thanks to Suzie of Michael Sutton’s Cellar for our wine suggestion -“Luckily you need a Blanc de blancs Champagne to match with the saltiness of the blue cheese and richness of butter! Sounds delightful!” Cheers!