Pumpkin gnocchi with chorizo, mushrooms and walnuts

Winter always seems to come late to my kitchen, it’s now heading into spring and I’ve only just now decided to bring out the big guns of autumnal flavours, deep earthy tones, rich in salt and fat, with a piquancy to warm the cockles.

I’m no expert when it comes to gnocchi, in fact it’s still a challenge I am learning to master, so instead of doling out advice on a subject I’m no authority on I thought I’d send you off to a good resource and a couple of recipes I’ve made in the past. Firstly there is Lucky Peach’s How to make gnocchi, an awesome article well worth the read, then my own small contributions, potato chip gnocchi and potato flake gnocchi. I made, or rather attempted, swore a lot, and cobbled together passable pumpkin gnocchi, but any gnocchi would work well with the sauce.

There’s really actually not much to this. Get a heavy based pan on a high heat, and add in a splash of oil and a knob of butter, when the sizzling subsides add in the cooked gnocchi and generously brown, but quickly you don’t want to develop too thick of a crust. Transfer to a bowl, or other vessel.

Get the pan back on the heat and top up with butter if needed, toss in the chorizo and cook to release the fragrant fat from the sausage, add the diced shallots and cook until translucent. If you’re going to add a little heat with chilli, sprinkle it in now, then add the mushrooms and brown. Just as the mushrooms are getting done, toss in the mint, rosemary and walnuts, cook until fragrant. Toss the cooked gnocchi through and add a splash or two of the cooking liquid to lubricate. Taste and season, then serve.

What you’ll need for the above.
Mushrooms, sliced
Chorizo, dice
Walnuts, roughly chopped
Rosemary, pulled off the stem
Mint, thinly sliced
Cooked gnocchi
Reserved cooking water
Butter
Shallot, diced
Salt
Pepper
Chilli flakes

Buttercup squash Tortellini

Feeling ambitious after my recent success at making ravioli, I decided to try my hand at tortellini. The navel shaped pasta looked complicated, but after a bit of internet searching and YouTube watching, I was relieved to find out they appeared to be relatively simple to assemble.


The filling was made with some very slow roasted buttercup squash, very very slowly roasted. Cut a whole in the top of the squash, scoop out all the seeds and clean any fibres that cling to the inside. Drizzle in some olive oil, a pinch or two of salt and pepper, a couple cloves of garlic and finally stuff it full of tarragon. Replace the cap of the squash and place it in an oven set at 140°C. Cook for about 3 hours. You will notice, about an hour and a half in to cooking the cavity will be full of liquid, it needs to be cooked until all the liquid has gone. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool.

When the squash is cool enough to handle, scoop the flesh out into a bowl, along with all the stuffing, season the with some olive oil, paprika and white pepper. Mash until almost smooth, but leave a little texture in the purée.


Pasta dough is simple, two parts egg (by weight) and three parts flour, combine together in a bowl to form a dough, tip it out on to the bench, knead until smooth, wrap in plastic wrap and let it rest for half an hour. Then roll it out nice and thin, use a machine to do this, it would be very hard work to use a rolling pin. The above picture is a half of a 2 egg dough rolled out.


Cut out rounds from the dough, I used a 6 cm cutter.


Place a small spoonful of the squash purée in the center of the dough.


Fold in half, making sure to get all the air out and seal the edge. If it does not seal well use your finger dipped in water to trace around the edge before folding.


Fold over the flap.


Finally wrap the pasta around your pinky finger (flap on the outside) and pinch together. If you manage to rope in a helper, you can get through a large number quickly.

Cook in plenty of boiling salted water for a few minutes and then toss through a sauce.


We had the the tortellini with a simple mushroom cream sauce.

Pumpkin flour

One decent sized pumpkin, roasted in the oven whole until soft. I had cut a hole in the top and scooped the seeds out prior to cooking. I then puréed it and passed it through a sieve, and then spread over a lined tray.

It was then placed in to an oven at 50 degrees Celsius, with the door held ajar with a spoon. it stayed in there for about 8 hours, near the end I tore up the 'leather' and placed it on a rack, and back in the oven until completely dry.


It was then blitzed in a blender (it still needs a bit more grinding). I'm not 100% sure what I'm going to do with this, I'm thinking pasta or gnocchi.

Pumpkin Curry?!

Well, I don't know if I should call this a curry, it may not be, perhaps I should call it a aromatic spicy pumpkin stew. It's pretty quick and easy to whip together, and is great comfort food.