Sweet potato gnocchi with sage brown butter sauce

Ingredients:

Sweet potato gnocchi

Sweet pota, 1

Egg yolk, 1

All-purpose flour, 1/2 to 3/4 cup (plus more for rolling out gnocchi)

Salt, 3/4 tsp

Nutmeg, grated, 1 pinch

Sage brown butter sauce

Fresh sage, a handful, torn or coarsely chopped

Butter

Olive oil

Pearl onions, peeled

Sugar

Pecans, halved or coarsely chopped

Directions:

1. Bake the sweet potato in the oven until tender.

2. After the potato has cooled, peel and grate or use a ricer or mash with a fork in a bowl.

3. Add flour and salt and mix with fork

4. Make a well in the center of the potato mixture

5. Add egg and incorporate If you need more flour add it. If dough is too dry add another egg yolk.

6. To test, take a small portion of the dough with floured hands, form into a ball, and blanch in boiling salted water. When it floats, remove, taste, and adjust seasoning

7. Divide into eight pieces, roll into ropes, cut into pieces, roll over fork tines. Dry for at least twenty minutes. 

8. While gnocchi are drying, caramelize onions for sauce:

Melt butter, add pearl onions and sprinkle with sugar. Cook until onions are browned and caramelized.

9. Boil salted water and add gnocchi. When gnocchi float to the top, cook for two more minutes (total about five minutes. Drain gnocchi.

10. Add more butter to your saucepan. Heat until foamy and just beginning to brown. Stir in pecans and fresh safe.

11. Toss with gnocchi.

The story:

This is one of my favorite dishes, another one with great textures - pillow-like gnocchi, crunchy pecans, the crackle-pop of biting through the caramelized shell into a pearl onion... My mom thinks she adapted the recipe from Michael Chiarello but can't quite remember. We've been making it for many years now.

Some suggestions for this recipe - it can be doubled, and leftover gnocchi can be frozen easily. A combination of sweet and white potatoes can be used, but we prefer all sweet. The sauce also goes well with butternut squash ravioli. Finally, it makes a great side for the pork tenderloin with grapes.