Chewy, tender and slightly sweet with a nutty chestnut flavor, chestnut gnocchi are an easy recipe to make with chestnut flour. The distinct flavor of chestnuts comes through in the finished gnocchi, making them perfect to pair with fall ingredients like mushrooms and game, or just brown butter, sage and a sprinkle of parmesan.
If you've ever been intimidated by making gnocchi, don't be-these are quite different. There's no potato in this recipe at all as the gnocchi are made with a pasta dough instead of a potato dough.
Chef's Tips
This is a simple pasta dough with one catch: instead of whole eggs, you want to use only egg yolks here. Adding whole eggs can make the dough more difficult to handle and brittle as the recipe is made with half chestnut flour, which doesn't contain gluten. The egg yolks help ensure the dough stays supple, pliable, and easy to roll out.
How to Make Gnocchi with Chestnut Flour
This is the same as making fresh pasta dough, finished with the technique of making gnocchi. Combine the chestnut flour and all purpose or high gluten flour with the salt. Add the egg yolks and water and mix until the dough comes together.
Remove the dough and knead for a minute or two on a lightly floured cutting board. Chestnut pasta dough doesn't need to be kneaded as long as other pasta doughs as the starch from the chestnut flour helps to bind it. Wrap the dough in cling film and rest for 30 minutes before forming the gnocchi.
Cut ½ inch pieces of dough and roll them into a log. Cut the dough into ½ inch pieces and roll them off a gnocchi board, gently pressing with your thumb to help create the ridged gnocchi shape.
To cook the gnocchi, bring a pot of salted water to a boil and cook for 2-3 minutes until the gnocchi float and are tender and taste good to you.
Toss the gnocchi with a sauce and serve. Pictured below is chestnut gnocchi with goose confit, braised cabbage, brown butter and roasted chestnuts.
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Chestnut Flour Gnocchi
Equipment
- Pasta maker
- Rolling Pin
- Stand Mixer with paddle attachment
- baking sheet
Ingredients
- 5 large egg yolks
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- ½ lb chestnut flour
- ½ lb all purpose or high gluten flour
- 3 tablespoons cold water as needed
Instructions
- Combine the flours and salt in a mixing bowl or a stand mixer.
- Add the egg yolks and water and mix until the dough comes together. If you use a stand mixer you'll want to use the paddle attachment.
- Remove the dough and knead for 30 seconds. It should be smooth, uniform and pliable.
- wrap the dough in cling film and allow to rest for 30 minutes.
- Cut ½ inch logs of dough and roll them into even, round ropes.
- Cut each rope of dough into ½ inch pieces, then roll them off a gnocchi board or the tines of a fork, gently pressing down with your thumb to create the ridged gnocchi shape.
- Toss the gnocchi lightly with flour to prevent sticking. From here they can be refrigerated for 3-4 days or frozen for a few months.
- To cook the gnocchi, boil a pot of salted water, add the gnocchi and cook for 2-3 minutes until they all float. Taste a gnocchi and make sure it tastes good to you.
- Remove the gnocchi to a pan and toss with a simple sauce like mushrooms and spinach, wild boar ragu, or just brown butter, sage and parmesan.
Michael
The chestnut flour smells so good, and pretty sweet too. I don't have a good food processor, so I rehydrated chestnuts overnight, chopped them up, baked and then mashed them. I made gnocchi with a classic sage butter sauce and it was perfect! My gnocchi has some tiny chestnut bits, because I didn't ground the flour properly, but I like it.