Last weekend was great, it started very well when I received this lovely book about the less renown history of many Scottish women. The authour will be at the Blairgowrie book festival this weekend but unfortunately, I will not be able to go so I’m enjoying the book instead. It’s a very interesting reading and it showcases the women contribution to forging the Scotland we know today.
Then this inspiring weekend continued as I was in the panel of the event “Motherhood conversation cafe”, one of the many events of the WOW festival Perth. We have been very lucky to have the WOW festival in Perth for 2 years in a row especially as it’s the only one in Scotland. This amazing event is great to inspire, support and empower women in our community and beyond.
During the festival, they were gathering together recipes that could help when you feel homesick.
Even if for me home is Scotland my heart aches every time I think how far my parents, my sister and her family are, and how little I see them all.
Every time I make gnocchi it reminds me of the many times I helped my mum to make them and how we worked around our her kitchen table.
She often serve her gnocchi with a hearty meat sauce, this autumnal version is served with roasted butternut squash, rosemary and smoked hard ricotta cheese.
This amazing cheese is traditional from my region, Friuli Venezia Giulia, where they had a little shelf inside the fireplace to store and smoke the fresh cheese. This is a great way to preserve a kind of cheese that otherwise would go off in few days.
This are the flavours of my land of origin, few ingredients to make a filling meal to warm you up in the chilling autumn evening.
Ingredients
- 500 g potatoes like Maris Piper
- 150-200 g 00 flour or plain flour (plus more for dusting)
- 1 medium egg
- ¼ tsp salt
- To serve:
- 25g butter
- 2 sage leaves (optional)
- freshly grated Parmesan
Instructions
- Cook the potatoes with the skin on, in a large pan of boiling salted water, until tender. Drain and leave until cool enough to handle, then remove the skins. Mash the potatoes using a potato ricer or masher into a large bowl. Sprinkle over 100g of the flour, season well with salt, add the egg. Mix well then turn the dough onto the pastry board and add the rest of the flour little by little to obtain a dough of the right consistency. Depending on the potatoes, you may need to add a little more flour.
- Knead on a flour-dusted surface until pliable, then divide into 4 equal pieces and roll each into a sausage about 1-2cm thick. Slice into 2-3cm lengths – this is your basic gnocchi. Now you can gently roll each piece down a butter pat, the back of a fork or a fine grater to add grooves, which will help your sauce to stick, or simply roll into balls.
- Put the butter and sage in a frying pan and fry until the butter is melted and nutty brown in colour, and the sage leaves are crisp.
- Cook in a pan of boiling salted water, as soon as they come up to the surface they’re ready. Remove with a slotted spoon and toss with melted butter and finely grated Parmesan.
- Here are served with roasted butternut squash, rosemary and smoked ricotta cheese.
