Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Pea Pesto and Prosciutto

 

Last weekend my darling friend Jess had an afternoon tea for her birthday.  Jess is a fantastic baker and cook, and she prepared some awesome treats for us.  But perhaps my favourite were the savoury tarts smeared high with a home-made pea and cashew nut pesto, topped with cucumber and mint.

I had peas!  Frozen ones, actually.  Then I started fantasising about what I'd do with a pea pesto, and I quickly determined that it should be eaten with a sweet potato gnocchi.  When I got home from work the other night, not only did I already have sweet and regular potatoes at home, but I realised I also had some prosciutto and lots of fresh herbs in the fridge.  It should also be noted that having actually managed to leave the office by 5:30 - an almost unheard of phenomenon - I was all psyched for home-made gnocchi!

If you haven't made gnocchi before I urge you to do it.  It's as easy as making scones, as fun as playing with Play-Doh, and as delicious as eating freshly home-made gnocchi.  I find all sweet potato is a bit too sweet, so I used a mix of potatoes: one russet, one desiree and one large sweet.

Ingredients:

• two regular potatoes
• one sweet potato
• nutmeg
• approx 2 1/2 cups plain flour
• 2 cups peas
• fresh mint, oregano, thyme or any other herbs
• 1 cup pine nuts and cashews
• 1 lemon
• olive oil
• garlic
•  8 slices prosciutto

 
To make the gnocchi, boil the potatoes until soft enough to mash.  Then mash them good!  You want them to be as creamy as possible with no lumps.  No lumps at all, I tells ya!  I was fretting that I was on the path to lumpy gnocchi when I remembered my bar-mix - or wizzy stick as I sometimes think of it.  This turned my still lumpy mash into a creamy potato gloop. Add a little nutmeg at this point, you won't be sorry.

Then flour your bench with about a cup of flour, and tip your cream potato mixture into it.  Get as much flour as possible on your hands because the potato will be as sticky as get out.  Gently fold the flour into the potato dough, adding more flour as you need it, until it has a modicum of stuctural integrity.  You want the gnocchi to be as tender as possible, so it's important not to overwork it.

 Roll the gnocchi out into hilarious sausages if your mind is in the gutter, as mine was as I was cooking, and then slice your little dumplings off the end.  Again, keeping everything well dusted with flour, that the gnocchi might touch.  At this point you could put them in the fridge until cooking them, or freeze them for another occasion if you want.  Or EAT THEM RIGHT NOW.

While the potatoes are boiling, set up another pot of boiling water and cook your peas.  Then add most of the peas (reserving about 1/2 a cups worth) to your mixer, with the nuts, herbs, lemon juice, two cloves of garlic, salt, pepper and olive oil.  If you don't have a cooked-cheese-loathing boyfriend, I'd add some parmesan or pecorino at this point as well.  As for me, I abstained out of love.  Stupid, no-cheese love.

Anyway, pulse the pesto mix together until it forms a slightly chunky dip consistency (which, incidentally, is how I plan to eat the remainder ie with corn chips).  That's it. Pea pesto.

To prepare the gnocchi, bring water to the boil in a wide pot and drop in the gnocchi, ensuring to space them so they form one layer.  They'll drop to the floor of the pot; when they float to the surface (1 to 2 minutes) they are ready! Remove with a slotted spoon and place them on a plate to drain.  You can serve them like this, but I like to add to the 'toothiness' of them by lightly pan frying them, like any good dumpling.

So once all the gnocchi is boiled, slice the prosciutto into little bits and fry in a small amount of oil.  The prosciutto will leech all it's delicious porky fat into the pan as well.  Remove the prosciutto when it starts to crispin, reserving all the fat in the pan.  Then add your gnocchi to the pan and lightly sautee in the prosciutto fat.  You have just created one of the most delicious things ever.  But it gets better.  

Remove the gnocchi and add the pea pesto and a splash of water and heat through.  Add the extra peas and put the gnocchi back in, and mix through.  Finally add the prosciutto. 

Cooked-cheese-loathing man declared it one of the best meals I'd ever made him, because it had both complementary colours and flavours.  We wolfed it in front of SBS's Thursday night food show line-up, and felt grateful we hadn't sat through those shows and all their delectable treats with anything less delicious for ourselves.  Then I took the leftovers to work for office-time food bragging.  It happens.

Pea and Broad Bean Chelow

I was recently given the most beautiful book, Saraban; it details Greg and Lucy Malouf's journey through Iran and includes recipes throughout.  It's just about the ultimate in food porn: exquisitely written, rich with culture, history and personal anecdotes, as well as beautiful photography.  I read it in bed at night with a cup of tea, and have been drooling at the prospect of making something from it soon.

The choices were extensive, but I couldn't go past a chelow, a classic Iranian rice dish that features a tah-deeg! It was a completely new way to make rice for me, and much more involved than the usual reduction method I use.  The resultant texture was much more soft and fluffy than any I could ever recall eating.  The tah-deeg literally translates to 'bottom of the pan' (apparently) and forms a crispy shell on the rice that I had to carve through with a carving knife.  It's scrumptious.

You can make a basic chelow or you can mix things through the rice, making it even yummier.  Since our spring vegetables are glorious, I decided to make a pea and broad bean chelow.

Ingredients:

•  300g basmati rice
• 1kg fresh broad beans in the pod 
• 600g fresh peas in the pod
• salt
• fresh dill, finely chopped
• dried mint
• lemon rind
• 1 clove garlic
• small knob of butter, melted
• olive oil

Start by soaking the rice in lots of lukewarm water for about half an hour, swirling it occasionally with your fingers - this loosens the starch on the rice.  Then rinse the rice in cold water.


While the rice is soaking, shell the peas and broad beans.  Blanche them in boiling water for about a minute, then rinse them in cold water.  Then remove the second shell on the broad beans by splitting it down the side with your finger nail, and then slipping the beans out (they'll do this easily).

Now, back to the rice!

Bring a large pot of water (about 2 litres) to boil with several tablespoons of sea salt.  Add the rice and boil for a few minutes, and no more than five.  The rice should have started to soften on the outside and still be hard on the inside, when you take it off the stove.  Again, rinse it immediately in cold water to stop it from continuing to cook.

For the next part, use a lidded saucepan with a nice wide bottom, maybe one that curves up the sides, as this will be the shape of the tah-deeg.  Add a generous pour of oil to the bottom of the pan and a few tablespoons of water.  Place the pan on a high heat.  Once the oil has started to sizzle, spoon rice over the base of the pan forming an even layer.  Mix the remaining rice with the beans, peas, dill and mint, and spoon it into the pan (apparently spooning it prevents it from squashing in the dish, and thus it gets fluffier) into a big rice pyramid.  Using the handle of the spoon, make five or six holes through the rice to the bottom of the pan to facilitate the steaming.

Place the garlic clove and lemon rind on top of the rice mountain.  Then mix the small knob of butter with a few large spoonfuls of water, and drizzle this over the rice.  The butter makes the dish quite rich so adjust to your tastes.  The recipe calls for about 40g, but I would use about half this.  (I was in such a flurry of activity getting all this done before too much steam evaporated, that I failed to take any photos of this bit).

Wrap the lid in a tea towel for an extra seal on the saucepan, and place it on the pan.  Preparing the rest of the rice will take about a minute, so then turn the heat down low and leave it for about 40 minutes.

 
Once it's done, immerse the pan in a sink of icy cold water.  This sudden change in temperature shocks the rice away from the sides of the pan.  Then, invert the whole pan onto a plate, and feel a thrill of excitement that it actually worked!

You'll need a sharp knife to break through the tah-deeg, and it's just as much fun as smashing the top of a creme brulee, only savoury.  I served the chelow in wedges with chermoula crusted whiting and wedges of lemon, and a really nice white wine my friend Mel kindly behind when she was here the other night.

Scallop and prosciutto salad

Prosciutto, sliced into a dozen or so thin pieces
Scallops (about 8)

Peas

Cherry Tomatoes

Rocket

Fresh mint, finely chopped

Some unsalted butter for frying

Fry the scallops in the butter, remove and drain, then fry the prosciutto until crisp. Drain on paper towel.

Cook the peas, drain, and rinse in cold water to cool. Slice cherry tomatoes in half and toss through with rocket, peas and mint. Toss with a small dash of olive oil and cracked pepper. Add prosciutto and scallops, and scoff right down with some crisp white wine.

Pink and Green Salad

Ingredients:

Peas
Fresh Mint (lots)
Fetta
Beetroot

Cook the peas and allow to cool (soak them in iced water if you need to speed this process up). Roughly chop the mint and fetta, and peel and grate the raw beetroot. Throw all the ingredients in a large bowl, and toss. The beetroot will stain the fetta a hot pink colour almost immediately.

Dress with raspberry vinaigrette and olive oil.


NB Peas can be substituted for other lovely green vegies such as green beans, or broad beans. All other ingredients remain absolutely essential.