Gnocchi de Batata e Beterraba Sem Glúten com Manteiga de Sálvia e Avelãs

Preparação

1. Fill a medium/large pan halfway with water.
2. Add a little salt.
3. Bring to the boil.
4. Add your unpeeled potatoes and let them cook whilst you prepare the other ingredients.
5. Use a mortar and pestle to grind the roasted hazelnuts together. (or place in a sandwich bag and crush with a wooden spoon.
6. Take 5 or 6 fresh sage leaves and place them on top of each other, roll them tight and gently slice thin.
7. Add them to the hazelnuts with a few more whole sage leaves and grind together until you have a coarse mixture.
8. Set this aside and weigh up half a cup of potato starch and get a large mixing bowl ready for your gnocchi dough.
9. Open your cooked beetroot but keep the juice, halve each one and halve again then very roughly chop them into large dice.
10. Once the potatoes are soft enough to easily skewer with a fork, remove them from the water with a slotted spoon, but keep the pan on the hob, bring the heat down until it’s no longer rolling.
11. While the potatoes are still hot remove the peel, its surprisingly easy to do this with a pair of forks, add the peeled potatoes to your mixing bowl, season with salt and pepper and mash them, push the mashed potatoes to the side of the bowl and let them cool for a few minutes to prevent from cooking the egg.
12. Once the potatoes are cool enough to touch you can add your egg and your potato starch, mix well either by hand or with a spoon, you want the dough to lose its stickiness but not develop any cracks so add a little more starch if you need to.
13. Take half of the mix and set it aside, add the juice from your cooked beetroot to the bowl and have some starch ready as this will make the dough sticky again. Mix well, you should have a vibrant pink gnocchi dough (try to match the consistency of the dough you set aside).
14. Take half of the plain gnocchi dough and roll into a sausage, you can shape it as you like.
15. Take half of your pink dough and repeat the process unless you want to make something extra special, we gently starched a heart shaped cutter and made pink valentines gnocchi to go with the white pillows.
16. Put a frying pan on the hob on a medium/high heat and take a good large spoon of your butter or margarine of choice and heat it until it starts to froth, add your sage and hazelnuts and a little salt and pepper, turn the heat down to medium and add your gnocchi to the steaming water, stir your butter gently with a wooden spoon and adjust the heat if your butter stops frothing.
17. Once your gnocchi is floating its ready to add to your seasoned frying pan which should be beautifully aromatic by now, use a slotted spoon and gently place them into the frothing sage butter (if your gnocchi isn’t sizzling then the heat’s too low).
18. Prepare your bowls or plates with some rocket or any leaves of choice, add your roughly diced, cooked beetroot.
19. Check the underside of the gnocchi, if they have browned turn them over to finish. Once they’re crispy on both sides dish them up and make sure to drizzle over all of that flavourful goodness from the pan, add parmesan cheese and cracked black pepper and treat your partner and yourself to something extra special today.