Gnocking up some gnocchi

My Winter squashes are put to good use

I’ve had my first success with gnocchi and I regard this as something of a milestone. There was a time when I put gnocchi behind me, so to speak. Something that could be a messy business. You see, potatoes never worked for me in this context, so I approached the notion of using squash with some degree of scepticism. The squash in question is the lovely orange Uchiki Kuri from Japan, easily grown in Ireland and rarely expanding to anything beyond the size of a rugby ball, generally much smaller than that. The flesh is, like all squash, on the sweetish side but not sugary. I was determined that my gnocchi would be distinctly savoury, and they were.

I took one of my larger Uchiki Kuris, cut it in half and popped it in the oven at 180ºC (160º fan) without removing the seeds. After about 40 minutes the flesh was thoroughly soft when poked with a skewer. After cooling, I scooped out the seeds and whatever you call the stuff in which they are suspended (this being quite wet), leaving just the pumpkin flesh itself which was encouragingly dry when I dug it out into a bowl. Wet squash or pumpkin is hopeless for gnocchi. And don’t even think about using your Hallow’een pumpkin - it will be 99% water.

Having mashed up the flesh, I measured out 400g of the stuff and added it to 100g of plain flour and mixed thoroughly. Being dry, this was tedious process but it needs to be done thoroughly. At this point, in went 40g of grated Parmesan, two teaspoons of finely chopped fresh sage leaves, a good grating of nutmeg and some black pepper and fine sea salt. Finally, two cloves of garlic, very finely chopped and softened in a rather more butter than absolutely necessary.

When this was all throughly combined, I beat an egg yolk - not a whole egg, this being the advice of both Stephen Bull and Richard Corrigan - and moistened the mixture with it. Somehow this produced a soft but cohesive and easily pliable dough.

This I formed into a few sausages, rolled out on a floured surface. They were about the same bore as a 12 gauge shotgun cartridge or, if you prefer, a stick of seaside rock. So about 18 to 20mm. These I cut into little lengths about the width of the spine of the Penguin edition of A Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man - oh, alright then, a little more than a centimetre. I squashed these slightly and gently with a fork.

Cooking involved an abundance of salted boiling water. I dropped in a handful at a time and removed them with a slotted spoon, to a colander, as soon as they surfaced. Then it was just a matter of letting them drain and colouring them on the pan in plenty of butter. They were dished up with some crisped pancetta and a lot of Parmesan sprinkled on top.

Had my sage plants not given up the ghost I would, of course, have served them with crisp sage leaves and lots of browned butter but the version with which I had to make do was no hardship to eat.

The proof of the pudding - or starter, really - is that I shall certainly make them again. I cooked up some to have with a lamb casserole and had a few left over. These I reheated next day and deliberately overcooked them so that they became a little crusty - and I’ll certainly be doing that again.