Sweet potato gnocchi

So, one of the secrets that I accidentally end up telling more people than I'd like (case in point) is that I subscribe to, and read, Gwyneth Paltrow's newsletter, GOOP. The thing about GOOP is that the title always seems to be yelling at you: GOOP. DO. GET. BE. (I am!) MAKE. Most of the time it makes me wish Gwyneth Paltrow would stop yelling at me.

I don't always read GOOP closely and I hardly ever take GOOP seriously, but this year's Thanksgiving newsletter was full of things that regular humans can do. For example, I sent the slow-roasted turkey recipe to my mother who wanted a spatchcocked turkey but has, in the past, spatchcocked a turkey herself, didn't want to do it again, but then the grocery store where she bought this year's turkey didn't want to do it either. For myself, I found the Sweet Potato Gnocchi recipe and this coincided with a desire to make gnocchi that I've been having for a few months. And so began my adventure.


The original recipe is available here. You would think I would think that I was being silly enough by just following a GOOP recipe, but I made myself even sillier and didn't quite follow the quantities. So my version makes a ridiculous amount of gnocchi, as you will see.

I'd recommend taking some breaks in between stages. Otherwise you might go crazy. I also recommend being in a mood to spend a LOT of time doing this.

Sweet potato gnocchi
Adapted from GOOP MAKE

4 large sweet potatoes—not yams
2-4 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp red pepper flakes
2 tsp oregano
2 large baking potatoes
2 eggs, beaten
3-4 c. white flour, and then more
2-4 tsp. salt

Stage 1: Potato-cooking

Put your oven at 375º. Peel the sweet potatoes and then cut into 1-inch chunks. Toss with olive oil, pepper flakes, and oregano. Put in a baking dish, cover with aluminum foil, and roast for 20-30 minutes, until they're soft.

Boil the baking potatoes in a large pot until soft, 30-40 minutes.

Stage 2: Dough-making

Peel the baking potatoes and cut into chunks.

Puree the potatoes together. This can be done with a food mill, which I don't have, or a food processor, which I do. Be serious about not having chunks and really pureeing to smoothness because chunks ruin the shape of the gnocchi and make the shaping process more difficult. Trust me, I made this mistake already.

Transfer puree to a very, very big bowl. This bowl cannot be too big. Stir in the beaten eggs.

Then, gradually add flour by the cupful. You'll start with a wooden spoon and this will get difficult, so you'll switch to your hands and here begins a giant mess.

I added flour until the dough became very thick and wouldn't let clumps of itself go easily. Such as, I would lift a wooden spoonful of the dough from the bowl and had to lift it rather high for the spoonful to disengage from the bowlful. It looked like this:

Step three: Gnocchi-making

Clear a large space on your counter and have a cookie sheet covered in flour next to you, ready for the shaped gnocchi. Have a dishtowel near too, to cover the gnocchi.

Put lots of flour on your counter and drop a spoonful of dough onto it. Roll into a log about 3/4" in diameter. Cut into 1" sections. It should look like this:

Adorable, right? The dough should be sticky, but then it gets covered by the flour and becomes surprisingly easy to roll into a log. If this isn't happening, you probably don't have the right amount of flour in your dough. It shouldn't be falling apart, and it should be dense when you cut it into the individual gnocchi. If you've made pasta before, it should seem more like the texture of that pasta than of a bunch of pureed potatoes.

Step four: Gnocchi-cooking

Bring a big pot of salted water to a boil. Drop gnocchi in, cook 4-5 minutes. They should float and not fall apart:


I was surprised when my gnocchi didn't disintegrate in the boiling water. If you're afraid of this happening to you—which maybe you should be? it seems like a reasonable fear—boil some gnocchi before you've finished making them all so that you can fix the dough if it needs some fixing.

Here's the set-up I had: two pots of water going, lots of gnocchi to boil:


And here's how much gnocchi it made:


And here's what happens when you boil gnocchi too long (i.e., longer than 5 minutes)—they start falling apart and then clump together:


But here are successful gnocchi!


The other thing about these, besides being gorgeous dumplings of goodness, is that they are, in fact, quite delicious. Because they're made with sweet potatoes and have seasonings in them, they're pretty flavorful. I would make them again, maybe in three years.