• Recipes
• Second course
• Roast
• Pumpkin ricotta gnocchi with brussel sprouts, roasted pumpkin, and chestnuts

Roasting

What can be more fall than pumpkin? And spiced pumpkin at that. Once the temperature begins to drop, hearty dishes just need to come out, front and center. The sprouts adds color and flavor diversity to the pumpkin rush, the pancetta and sage a salty and savory touch. And the chestnuts, a flavor and texture break. The ricotta gnocchi recipe is an adaptation from my Sicilian Nonna. Using roasted pumpkin keeps the moisture content lower than using pumpkin from a can (plus it's sweeter) thus needing less flour to bind it. The trick of removing moisture from the ricotta using paper towels comes from a Serious Eats recipe. I find the ricotta gives the gnocchi a softer and less dense texture than potato gnocchi, thus they're somewhat lower on the gut bomb scale ... unless you eat twice as much. The mascarpone adds a little cheesy tang (you can skip the mascapone and substitute parmegiano cheese). The trick with gnocchi is to knead the dough as little as possible, just until the ingredients come together. It'll be a little sticky, just keep your hands floured. and keep your work surface generously floured. Sorry, but this gets a little complicated because of the various steps of prep work. The gnocchi can be made while the pumpkin is roasting. And while the gnocchi firm up in the fridge, braise the sprouts (and get some water boiling). Once the sprouts are braised, the gnocchi cook in a minute or slightly more, so the final steps go quickly. Alternately, you can make the gnocchi ahead of time and freeze them. You can drop the frozen gnocchi straight into the boiling water, they don't take much longer to cook than do refrigerated gnocchi. You'll probably have extra gnocchi and pumpkin. Save for a quick meal of gnocchi in brown butter and sage sauce with the pumpkin. Or make a pumpkin cream sauce for the gnocchi.

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