Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Chestnut Pesto

Serves: 4

INGREDIENTS

Chestnut pesto

• 150ml / 5 oz fresh Chestnuts in peel, (or ready-peeled Chestnut Brae chestnuts) (purchase here)
• 100ml / 3.5 oz grated parmesan
• 2 handfuls parsley
• 2 handfuls toasted walnuts
• Squeeze of lemon juice
• Pepper and Lake Deborah salt
• olive oil

Gnocchi

• 700gm / 1.5 lbs sweet potato
• 1 ½ cup Chestnut Flour (purchase here)
• 1/2  cup all purpose flour (or Gluten Free Self Raising Flour)
• 1 fresh egg
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 pinch salt

METHOD
To Peel Chestnuts  (or use Chestnut Brae’s peeled, frozen Chestnuts)

1. Preheat the oven to 400F/200C.
2. Cut a cross in the flat side of the chestnut.
3. Put the chestnuts cross side up on a baking tray and slide in the oven. Cook until the edges of the cross curl up.
4. Then remove them from the oven, wrap in a towel to keep them warm while you peel them. If they are cold they are hard to peel, thus why we wrap them to keep them warm while you peek them.

Chestnut Pesto

1. Put Chestnuts in a food processor (or mortar and pestle)
2. Add the Parmesan, walnuts, parsley and olive oil.
3. Grind into a coarse pesto, it should not be a smooth paste.
4. Season with pepper, salt and a squeeze of lemon juice.

Gnocchi

1. Cook the potatoes in their skin in boiling water until soft. Then peel off the skin and mash them slightly.
2. Spread them out on a baking tray and put them in the oven for 5 minutes to dry them out a bit, make sure they don’t brown. You just want them to lose some water.
3. Prepare a clean worktop to knead on and baking paper to put the gnocchi on when formed.
4. Press the potato through a sieve and make a pile on your worktop.
5. Make a well in the middle and incorporate the egg, nutmeg and salt.
6. Now we have to work a bit fast; we don’t want to over-knead the dough because then it becomes sticky again. Combine two fours and start adding the flour in batches; knead until the mixture is not sticky anymore.
7. Divide it in three and roll them out into long snakes. Cut the snake into gnocchi the size you like and place them on the baking sheet.
8. You can now form them into little egg shapes, make edges with a fork or twist them around their axis to make a nice curl if you like.
9. Boil water in a big pan and cook the gnocchi until they start floating on the surface.

Mix the gnocchi with the pesto and serve with some grated Parmesan on top.

Adapted from Janneke Verheij