Gnocchi with Mushrooms

My friend Miriam and I took a day off to hang out together, something we don’t get to do too often but plan like a military campaign when we do. That is, Miriam does, I am the straggler who gets swept along in her wake. She’s a bundle of energy and since we normally get together over Shabbat meals with our hubbies, it’s especially fun to go off with her alone. We started our day with an excellent lecture (she’s English, priorities, the serious stuff first) and then went hither and yon. Amongst the yon, of course, is a meal. We did lunch after braving many venues and went to a restaurant we both like not far from home. We decided to split two items on the menu and one of them was the mushrooms and gnocchi. I was so wowed with it (as was Miriam) that I tried to wheedle the recipe from the waiter. I have a food blog, yadda yadda. No dice, the chain doesn’t give out recipes. K, so I decided to more or less deconstruct it and took liberties. Hey, no recipe, I can do as I wish, right? 🙂 . So this isn’t precisely true to the dish, but I’m very pleased with the results. I present to you my version, albeit incorporating many of their ingredient choices.

Gather your ingredients.

Just a note, the 2 frozen brown cubes are my caramelized onions that I prepare as often as I can in advance and freeze in cubes. I have 2 versions of making it, the easiest is Caramelized Onions in a Slow Cooker and it’s great to have these available whenever you need sautéed onions. If you don’t have it, just sauté the onion as in the recipe below. It doesn’t even need to be caramelized, browned is sufficient. Next to the onions are my oven roasted garlic cloves (those are pearl garlic, they are large and easy to work with). Oven Roasted Garlic Cloves. Again, using regular garlic cloves that you sauté is just fine, no worries. I merely wanted to clarify what you are seeing in the picture. K. One more thing, they didn’t have plain gnocchi in the shop so rather than go with the cauliflower gnocchi (sounded a bit weird to me) I went with the sweet potato kind. It’s a mild hint of the flavor and quite nice, actually, but plain gnocchi are fine and my original intention.

Start with a large and deep frying pan, enough to hold all the ingredients and without putting any oil in the pan, place the walnuts in and toast them for a few minutes on a medium/low heat stirring once or twice. Remove from pan and set aside.

In a different medium pot, bring water to boil with a teaspoon of salt till seriously boiling and add the gnocchi.

Keep an eye on them since you only are cooking them till they all float to the surface of the boiling water like so:

drain the gnocchi and we go on to the sautéing. Another note here. I know many recipes recommend crisping the gnocchi in oil. I’ve found they rarely retain the crispiness because you are saucing them. I skip this step and toss them into the sauté mix, thereby saving you this job.

Now sauté in the oil the onion till medium brown (not more or it will get bitter, no need to caramelize) and DO NOT! add the garlic now. Place the mushrooms in with the onion and sauté lightly just till colored but don’t cook them down, you want them to stay firm.

Add the roasted chestnuts and sauté with the mushrooms for a couple of minutes, add the garlic and sauté a couple of minutes

and add the teriyaki sauce and the gnocchi stirring together and coating everything well with the sauce. Toss in the walnuts last so they have a bit of crispy going on and coat in the sauce.

Serve hot to happy eaters. I taste tested this on a bunch of my kids and grandkids and it made a big hit!

Gnocchi with Mushrooms

1/2 cup (50 grams) walnut halves

1 small onion, peeled and chopped

2 to 3 tablespoons canola oil

Two cloves garlic, peeled and chopped

7 ounces (200 grams) peeled, roasted chestnuts, cut in half

4 cups cleaned and sliced in half mushrooms

2 cups (approximately 360 grams) gnocchi

2 to 3 tablespoons teriyaki sauce

Salt to taste if needed

Directions:

Toast walnuts briefly in dry pan, stirring once or twice for about 3-4 minutes. Remove and set aside. Bring water to a boil with a teaspoon of salt and cook gnocchi just till they rise to the top of the pan. Remove and drain. Sauté onions till light brown and add mushrooms sautéing till lightly browned but do not cook down, cook for about 4 minutes and add gnocchi and chestnuts and garlic continuing to sauté in oil and add teriyaki sauce. Cook and toss to coat. Add walnut halves and toss all ingredients in the pan. Serve hot.