Sweet potato gnocchi – and a little light chemistry

Things have been a little thin on the ground recently food post wise. Fortunately this is not due to a lack of cooking. Time, however, has taken on a relentless pace and leaves me battered and dazed at the end of each week.

Time travel or not, I couldn’t let this month’s Beet n Squash YOU! slip past. After all, I have prepared a recipe. Or three.



First of all a confession: I don’t really like sweet potatoes. I’m not exactly sure what I don’t like, but there it is. So this month’s recipe proved a particular challenge.



The alternative to my final dish was aloo saag, substituting the regular spuds with sweet potato. It worked really well, but I always think of aloo saag as a side dish rather than the main event so I eventually settled on the gnocchi.



I can’t remember the first time I had gnocchi. Gnocchi with four cheese sauce is one of my mother’s favourite dishes and appeared frequently on the dinner table when I was growing up. For me though, gnocchi will always be associated with chemistry classes the year before university.



I decided I wanted to be a doctor as a young child. I have no memory of ever wanting to do anything else. Medical courses vary between medical schools and countries but they all have one thing in common: the chemistry requirement.



I still feel a stirring of anxiety when I think of chemistry classes. These days, safely the other side of medical school, that hint of anxiety is coated with a loose emulsion of amusement and nostalgia. As a school girl, chemistry truly was my Achilles’ heel. It was my first experience of how much pressure and high expectations can suck the pleasure out of anything.



When I think of my chemistry classes now, I think of friendship and gnocchi. No matter how many hours we slaved away at the bench, there was always a fabulous sense of camaraderie. Being in our chemistry class was like being in a big, close family.



Presiding over our class: the head of chemistry. I think I will be slightly afraid of her forever. Some months ago, I started a research project. A lab based research project. Every time I open my lab book I imagine having to hand it in for marking. If nothing else, my lab book is always immaculate.



Tough though she was, that remarkable woman really looked out for us chemistry kids. At the end of term, we were bundled into a school van and driven off for a class dinner of gnocchi and goulash. If I close my eyes, I can still taste it: it was the best gnocchi I have ever had (sorry, mum!)



I have been thinking a lot about those chemistry classes recently as I work through my experiments in the lab. Inevitably, thoughts of chemistry lead to thoughts of gnocchi and it seemed fitting to create a gnocchi dish with my sweet potatoes.



To me, sweet potato tastes best with light, but strong, flavours. I made a coriander pesto with a hint of chili which worked nicely with the sweet potato gnocchi. But my OH is a committed carnivore and is not happy when served a dish without meat or fish, so I grilled some prawns after marinading them in chili and lemon juice with garlic. It wasn’t actually meant to be part of the dish, but it fitted perfectly.



Ingredients (Based on these recipes)
King prawns (I used 3 per person as they were enormous!)
2 chilies, finely chopped
4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
Juice of one lemon
Olive oil, about 4 tablespoons
Sweet potato 1 lb 2 oz, peeled and diced
Plain flour, 7 oz
Fresh basil, 1 oz
Fresh coriander, 1 oz
Pine nuts, 3 1/2 oz,
Fresh parmesan, 3 1/2 oz
Salt and pepper



Put the prawns into a bowl, season, and then marinade with the half the garlic, half the chopped chili, half the olive oil and half the lemon juice. Meanwhile, chop the sweet potatoes and then boil until tender.



While the sweet potatoes are cooking, make the pesto. Put the remaining lemon juice, garlic and chilies into a blender or food processor together with the basil and coriander. Season, and pulse until ground coarsely.



Add the pine nuts, and pulse until the nuts are ground coarsely. Remove from food processor, and stir in the parmesan and olive oil. Set aside.



Mash the sweet potato to a fine pulp and then add salt and pepper and the flour. Mix into a firm dough using your hands.



If the dough is too sticky, add a little more flour (half a tablespoon at a time) – but be careful to add as little as possible as too much will affect the taste and consistency of the gnocchi. Roll the dough into a sausage shape half an inch thick, and cut into pieces about an inch long.



Bring a pan of water to the boil and simmer, and switch on the grill. Grill the prawns for about three minutes on one side, turn them, then add the gnocchi to the water. In a separate pan, heat the pesto over a medium heat.


The gnocchi will take about two minutes to cook; when they rise to the surface of the water remove them and stir them into the pesto. Serve with the prawns.

I can’t over emphasize how easy it is to prepare this dish; the timings just follow on from one another perfectly. And the prawns, despite being an afterthought, really do work!