Hey, it's October. What were you expecting, spring peas?
This is the first time I have used a pumpkin to make gnocchi, and so we are flying a little blind here. I also didn't use a recipe. The ingredients seemed to come together naturally.
It started out by clearing away all the seeds. This is a Tonda Padana pumpkin (or winter squash, if you prefer); grown by a friend locally from Italian seeds that I provided her. I planted the seeds also, but didn't get a single pumpkin.
I decided to roast the pumpkin, and to do that I placed the two sides face down in water inside a roasting pan. This went into the oven, at about 375 degrees F, for about an hour, or until the flesh was very soft.
Here's the cooked pumpkin, ready to have the flesh scooped out. (It was on the watery side, and so I let the flesh sit in a colander for about an hour to drain.)
Here's what I wound up with for ingredients (clockwise from bottom left): 3 cups of pumpkin; 3/4 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese; 1 lb. of fresh ricotta; and 1/8th cup of finely processed amaretti cookies (I used the Vitamix on that). There's also some nutmeg sprinkled on top, as well as salt and pepper.
Before adding an egg, taste the mix to see if you like it and adjust seasonings if needed.
Though others would probably suggest adding flour to the entire mixture, I prefer working in small batches. I put a bit of flour on my work surface, scooped out some of the mix, then very delicately worked it all together.
It's critical to not work the dough very hard. My preference is to go as light on the flour (and the mixing and the rolling) as I can get away with while still getting the dough to hold together.
You can see that these gnocchi are barely worked at all. This makes it a little difficult to handle but the payoff, I think, is well worth it.
Here are the gnocchi after they were quick fried in very hot extra virgin olive oil. They are served with just a little brown butter and sage, plus crumbled Parmigiano-Reggiano.
Definitely among the lightest, most delicate gnocchi I've ever had.
From now on I will be supplying these pumpkin seeds to as many friends as I can convince to take them.
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