Pan-fried Gnocchi with Roasted Squash, Bacon, and Sage

I’ve never succeeded at making gnocchi from a recipe. They would usually turn out too dense and firm, or sometimes just the opposite – so soft that they would almost dissolve as I boiled them in water.

I recently came across this article from The Lucky Peach. It’s a step-by-step gnocchi guide by Marco Canora, the chef at Hearth restaurant in New York, who claims to have made gnocchi some-forty thousand times. He doesn’t include a recipe, which is a good thing, but he does eloquently curse his way through a very detailed gnocchi making process, which may either scare you to death or slowly start to convince you that really good home-made gnocchi is not totally out of reach.

Gnocchi are just potato dumplings, made out of two of the simplest ingredients, potatoes and flour. But sometimes simple things can be the most intricate. In the context of gnocchi, not only do different potato varieties behave differently, but their age matters, the way they’re cooked matters, the temperature at which they’re mixed with flour matters. I can go on. This is why recipes have failed me in the past and this is exactly where Marco’s guide gave me hope. It doesn’t offer specific quantities, but has all the little steps and bits of sensory guidance that you will need.

For today’s recipe I decided to give Marco’s gnocchi a shot. Mine didn’t turn out perfect but I have faith that with practice and my new-found understanding of the process, they will improve. They were, however, much better than anything I’ve made in the past or bought at the supermarket. I would encourage you to try them out as well, but I won’t insist. You can certainly make this recipe with store bought gnocchi, but I hope to have sparked a little bit of curiosity about the process.

Let’s move on to today’s super hearty mid-winter treat. Sweet roasted acorn squash and pan-fried gnocchi are complemented with crispy bacon and sage leaves on a family-style platter, with hopes that everyone around the table can enjoy a few indulgent bites. You can easily make it vegetarian by substituting bacon with some grated parmesan cheese and adding some toasted pine nuts on top.

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