It began with ricotta, made its way to potato and now we have arrived at sweet potato. We roast 3 to 4
sweet potatoes in the oven until they are tender, then scoop out the flesh and let it cool. We weigh the flesh, hopefully we have 450 grams. If there is a bit extra save it for another use. If you come up shy, adjust the ratio down. We then add 350 grams of ricotta and four grams of salt to the sweet potatoes. We place these ingredients in a Pacojet cansister, though a food
processor will work just fine, and puree the mixture until it is smooth and without lumps. Then we add eight grams, one percent, Activa Y-G to the mix and puree again to incorporate and fully disperse the powder. Once the base is made we put it in a piping bag and extrude strips of the dough. After this is done, we invert another sheet pan on top of the tubes of sweet potato to protect them and place it in the refrigerator so the mixture can set. We have found that this Activa takes longer to form its bonds, at least 12 hours, although a full 18 hours seems to get better results.
Once the sweet potato tubes have rested we take them from the refrigerator and cut them into individual gnocchi. At this point they are ready to use. Then can be sauteed, glazed, broiled, baked, or steamed. We like this particular shape for our gnocchi. You can certainly experiment with others, the base can easily be set in cubes or rectangles in molds or simply shaped into quenelles.
Here we designed a simple dish of sauteed gizzards and swiss chard leaves to highlight the sweet potato gnocchi. A flourish of shaved spring white truffles gilds the lily and if they are not available, a nice nutty cheese would certainly be a terrific stand in.