Organic Sweet Potato Gnocchi

 I am my own worst critic and it takes a lot for me to push back from the dinner table and say to my husband "Damn! Now that is good!" and for him to respond with his usually "That what she said" punch line, followed by his best "Oh yeah Babe" Emeril impersonation.  These Organic Sweet Potato Gnocchi have to be the best thing I have made in recent months.  I served them in a brown butter sage and pancetta sauce, that I thinned out with some Marsala cooking wine and reserved pasta water.  They were little pillows of savory sweetness.  I really feel that organic sweet potatoes are far more flavorful and naturally sweet tasting than any other type of "yam" you find at the mega mart.  Try for yourself!
The dough came together easy and after I got the hang of "flipping" them off the tings of the fork, I was a machine!  

I also admit while I am usually a good student of Marcella Hazan, aka "The Grandmother of Italian cooking", I made a rebellious move to in using sweet potatoes to make gnocchi.  After reading her Gnocchi notes in my copy of "Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking" I went with my cravings and taste buds and said what ev to Marcella, determined to make this work!  Click on the links if you don't know who Marcella is or about her amazing influence on true Italian cooking in America.  This book by the way, is the only Italian cookbook you would ever need to become at the very least, a knowledgeable foodie on authentic Italian cooking methods, culture, ingredients.  It is written in such a straight-forward, concise, down-to-earth manner; you would think Marcella is standing right next to you in the kitchen!
Anyhow, after Googling her name plus gnocchi, I found that many other food bloggers and cooking junkies, such as myself, have made gnocchi using her recipe and compared it to other notable Italian chefs' recipes, such as Mario Batali.  I also found a lot of chatter about the type of potatoes used because Marcella goes short of calling it blasphemy to use any other potato, than the "boiling" type.  That may make perfect sense in Veneto, but in the states we really don't have anything like that is named "boiling" and she states that Idaho or new potatoes are not suitable because of their moisture content.  She mentions nothing about sweet potatoes and I can imagine because this flavor of gnocchi would be considered a American-Italian variety.
So, how did I make this work?  Sweet potatoes don't have the same texture , moisture, or mealiness as regular potatoes, I knew that.  So using my growing understanding of the science behind the ingredients, which by the way, really gets you cooking, I figured out a way to boost the potatoes to match the light, fluffy texture she was taking about when boiling potatoes are used.  You will need an lightly beaten egg and potato starch for this recipe.  Sweet potatoes have less starch in them and although the egg in the dough was also tabu by Marcella, sweet potatoes also can get a little loose because of their lack of starch carbs to bind them together.  

Hilariously long explanation here for a recipe that has 2 essential ingredients!  But try my method, I think you will be happy with the results!  

A labor of gnocchi love but totally worth it!

Organic Sweet Potato Gnocchi

serves 6-8 generous main courses

1 1/2 lbs organic potatoes  (important to weigh them) washed and scrubbed
1 1/2 cups unbleached flour
1T potato starch *key to these being fluffy, do not omit!
1/2t ground garam masala or nutmeg  (optional)
1 room temperature egg, lightly beaten

 * Brown Butter Pancetta Sage Sauce (see below)
freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1.  Put the potatoes in a pot.  Fill up pot with enough water to cover potatoes, and bring to a boil.  Cook until tender, about 25-30 minutes.  Good tip by Marcella:  Do not poke the potatoes too often with a fork to test their doneness!  They will become waterlogged.  I gently press a potato against the side of the pot to check their tenderness.  Drain them when done and peel off  the skins while still hot.  In batches, run them through a potato ricer (what I use) or I guess a hand blender would puree them as well.
2.  Dump the potatoes into a strainer over a bowl and just let cool a bit, not to room temperature though.  I just wanted to get any liquid out of them that may have been leftover from boiling out. 
Mix the potato starch with the flour with a whisk, and add a little spice if you wish.  

3.  Once the potatoes have slightly cooled, place them in a clean bowl and add the egg.  Thoroughly, but gently incorporate the egg. Sprinkle a little of the flour on a work surface and dump the potatoes on to it.

Sprinkle most of the flour over the potatoes and begin to incorporate the two together with your hands (you could do this in a bowl, but be gentle). Use almost a folding motion as the flour is absorbed into the potato.  It will look rough at first but just keep gently mixing and adding flour until it is soft and smooth, but still slightly sticky. I used more of a gentle kneading motion as it began to come together, but it is key to be gentle with this to keep the dough from getting tough, the little stickiness is your clue that you have been light-handed and resisted adding too much flour.  My dough doneness test is to push my thumb into it and if it bounces back, it is kneaded enough.  Let dough rest about 5-10 minutes.  Prepare sauce at this point on continue to step 4:

BROWN BUTTER PANCETTA SAGE SAUCE
** At this point I would gather the ingredients for your choice of sauce.  I wanted a lighter sauce, not too rich, but a little saltiness to complement the sweet taste of the sweet potatoes.  In a larger saute pan (big enough to hold the gnocchi once they are finished), I melted a tablespoon of butter and added some finely diced pancetta and julienned fresh sage.  On at least medium high heat, I crisped the pancetta and sage.  Then I added 3 more tablespoons of butter, browning it slightly, then adding about a cup of Marsala or white cooking wine, lowering the temperature to a low simmer to slowly evaporate the wine but not totally.  As your last batch of gnocchi cooks, you can spoon out a 1/2 to full cup of pasta water and add it to the pan.  To add a little body to the sauce at the end, I also added a few tablespoons of  half and half, but use heavy cream or whatever you have along that lines. 

4.  Dust the work surface lightly with flour.  Divide the dough in 3 or more parts and shape each one of them into a 1 inch thick, long roll.  Slice each roll into pieces 3/4 inch long.  You will be dusting your hands and the board when needed during this step.
5.  Here is the tricky part: Shaping the gnocchi.  To me, any pasta that is homemade, has imperfections.  That's is what makes it awesome and worth making! But gnocchi does need the grooves in them in order to hold any type of sauce, so you can't skip it.
FOLLOW THIS AS BEST AS POSSIBLE AFTER READING ABOUT 3 TIMES!  I will quote Marcella's technique and a good idea may be to YouTube a video on making gnocchi to see someone in action. DO YOUR BEST and PRACTICE.
As stated in Marcella's "Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking": ' Take a dinner fork with long, slim tings.  Working over the counter, hold the fork more or less parallel to the counter with the concave side facing you.  With the index finger of your other hand, hold one of the cut pieces against the inside curve of the fork, just below the tips of the prongs.  At the same time that you are pressing the piece against the prongs, flip it away from the tips and in the direction of the fork's handle.  The motion of the finger is flipping, not dragging.  As the piece rolls away from the prongs, let it drop to the counter.  If you are doing correctly, it will have ridges on one side formed by the tines and a depression on the other formed by your fingertip.'
Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment or wax paper that has been dusted with flour.  After one tray is filled in a single layer, placed it uncovered in the fridge as you shape the rest.  *At this point, if you were going to freeze half of your batch, you could place the baking sheet in the freezer until the gnocchi were frozen enough to transfer to a freezer bag.
6.  Use a pot or pan capable of  holding 4-6 quarts of water, depending on how many gnocchi you are going to cook at once, you want to cook in batches so that you don't crowd the gnocchi.  Bring about 4 quarts of water to a boil, and add salt.  Good tip is to only put about 2-3 gnocchi in the boiling water first, to figure out cooking time.  Ten seconds after they have risen to the surface, take them out and taste them. Marcella notes "if the flavor is too floury, you must add 2-3 seconds to the cooking time; if they are nearly dissolved, you must subtract 2 or 3 seconds."   Homemade pasta of any type cooks much quicker, so watch attentively.  Add no more than two dozen gnocchi at a time to the boiling water and cook till they rise to the top, wait ten seconds, plus or minus what you figured out your batch needs, then retrieve them with a large slotted spoon, and transfer to a serving platter or just a plate, depending how you are going to sauce them.  

I had my brown butter sauce waiting for them on the burner along side my pasta pot, so as they were finished I slid them into sauce.  Once they are finished, gently toss the gnocchi and the sauce together, top with a little sprinkle of grated Parmesan cheese and you are ready to enjoy!