From Taste of Home · · 3m
Pumpkin gnocchi shaped like tiny pumpkins
Four pantry ingredients, no eggs, and a toothpick turn leftover pumpkin puree into a fall dinner that looks like a craft project.
In brief
Four pantry ingredients, no eggs, and a toothpick turn leftover pumpkin puree into a fall dinner that looks like a craft project. Pumpkin puree does triple duty here as flavor, color and binder, so the dough needs nothing but flour, salt, pepper and nutmeg. Originally reported by Taste of Home.
Pumpkins that taste like pumpkin
These gnocchi are shaped like mini pumpkins and flavored with real pumpkin puree plus nutmeg. A sage butter sauce goes over the top.
“aren't just shaped like pumpkins, they taste like them, too!”
Use up that puree
The recipe exists for the half can of pumpkin sitting in your fridge. One cup of canned pumpkin is all the dough needs.
Puree does three jobs
It carries the flavor, tints the dough orange with no food dye, and binds everything together. That last part means no eggs at all.
Plain flour wins
All-purpose flour gives enough structure without turning the gnocchi tough. Skip the 00 flour, you want chewy and pillowy.
Nutmeg, not cinnamon
Nutmeg brings fall warmth without making the gnocchi taste sweet. Grate it fresh from a whole nutmeg if you can.
Buy the good butter
Half a cup of butter is basically the entire sauce, so quality shows. Use fresh sage leaves too, dried sage will not release the same oils.
“Don't use dried sage in its place.”
Mix and rest
Whisk 1-1/2 cups flour with salt, pepper and nutmeg, stir in the pumpkin, then knead 10 to 12 times on a floured surface. Rest 10 minutes.
Roll, cut, ball
Split the dough in four, roll each into a 1/2-inch rope, and cut 1-1/2-inch pieces. Roll every piece into a ball.
A toothpick makes the ridges
Press vertical lines into the sides of each ball with a toothpick. The grooves sell the pumpkin look and give the sauce something to cling to.
Boil until they float
Cook in batches in 6 quarts of boiling water for 1 to 1-1/2 minutes, until they rise. Lift them out with a slotted spoon and toss in a little olive oil so they do not stick.
Butter, sage, garlic
Melt the butter over medium heat, add sliced sage and a minced garlic clove, then stir the gnocchi through to coat. Cook time is five minutes.
Rosemary stems on top
Spoon into bowls and set a rosemary leaf in the center of each gnocchi as a stem. Do a few, not all of them, or it gets tedious fast.
Keep or freeze them
Cooked leftovers hold three days in the fridge. Freeze shaped raw gnocchi on a tray for an hour, bag them for two months, and boil straight from frozen.
The headline
Pumpkin puree does triple duty here as flavor, color and binder, so the dough needs nothing but flour, salt, pepper and nutmeg.
