Versatile Uses of Beetroot III. / Colored Gnocchi

I know. Gnocchi can be purchased ready - made at grocery stores. So why bother about preparing it yourself? Firstly, because home-made gnocchi are incomparable with ready- made ones, and what is more, substituting part of the potatoes traditionally used as a basis with some other vegetable takes the dish to a whole new level. Today I used three different kinds of dough: plain potato, beetroot and squash.

Classic potato dough:

600g potatoes unpeeled (roughly)

200g flour (roughly)

1 large egg

1 large pinch of salt

Beetroot dough:
300g butternut squash puree (roughly)

300g potatoes unpeeled (roughly)

200g flour (roughly)

1 egg

1 large pinch of salt

Butternut squash dough:
300g butternut squash puree (roughly)

300g potatoes unpeeled (roughly)

200g flour (roughly)

1 egg

1 large pinch of salt

+ flour for dusting

1 onion

50ml wine vinegar

150ml white wine

400ml vegetable stock

200 g ice-cold butter cut into cubes

salt, pepper

+ 50g unsalted butter

15-20 fresh sage leaves

Put the potatoes in a saucepan, unpeeled and cook them for about an hour. Wrap the beetroots in tin foil, cut the butternut squash in pieces, then place them onto a baking tin, covered. Bake the beetroots and the squash at 200C for about 1-1 1/2 hours. Then remove the skin, cut them into pieces.

Mesh the potatoes with a potato press, blend the beetroot and the squash thoroughly with a hand blender.

Chop the onion, put it into a saucepan, add the wine and the vinegar and boil it until it the liquid is reduced to approximately 1/3 of the original quantity. Add the stock and keep simmering until the sauce is reduced to 150ml. Strain the sauce to remove the onion. Then add the butter cubes one by one and mix well.

Gather the ingredients of the gnocchi. The dough is a mixture of approximately 600 g mashed vegetables (potatoes or potatoes and beet/squash), 200 g flour, 1 large egg and a large pinch of salt. These are just rough measures. Depending on the water content of the veggies, you might need to add a little more flour to get an easy-to-form dough.

Using your hand, bring the mixture together to form a dough. Sprinkle some flour on a work surface and roll out the dough,

Cut the flattened dough into 2 cm stripes. Take two different color dough stripes then twist them as seen on the photo. Roll them into a sausage form.

With a sharp knife cut the roll into dumpling shapes of about 2cm. Set aside.

Melt 50 g of butter in a saucepan, add 15-20 fresh sage leaves and fry until the edges get golden brown.

Bring a large pan of water to the boil and drop in the gnocchi. Simmer them until they rise back to the top and 1 minute afterwards. Drain them.

Put the gnocchi on a plate, pour over 2-3 tablespoons of the sauce, add the fried sage leaves and thin slices of parmesan.