by Owen Lightly | Winter is coming, but winter squash are here now and ready for their time in the spotlight. These craggily, thick-skinned, gnarly bastards have been patiently waiting under a thick mess of leaves and vines for months, and now are one of the ever-shrinking local vegetables available at the weekly winter Farmers Market at Riley Park. The time is now! Buy a few different varieties, try some new dishes (like the recipe below) and watch your love grow.

Squash-Ricotta Gnocchi with Brown Butter, Sage & Amaretti

This recipe has all of the flavours of traditional squash ravioli filling, but in gnocchi form (4-6 servings)

I have to admit that I wasn’t that big a fan of ricotta based gnocchi (the ones I had tried were always too firm and doughy) until I got some good advice from an old sous-chef of mine at Araxi. “Cook the shit out of them,” John said. And he was right. Left to cook for longer than you would think, they soufflé slightly and achieve that pillow-like texture that is the hallmark of good gnocchi. Cook the shit out of them is a crude way to put it, but they are definitely not as delicate as potato gnocchi, which can go from perfect to overcooked in the blink of an eye. Don’t be afraid to leave them in the pot for a while – just keep tasting them until they reach the right consistency.

Ingredients

2 medium butternut squash, about 4 pounds
extra virgin olive oil
1 cup/250 grams ricotta cheese, squeezed of excess moisture
¾ cup / 40 grams parmesan cheese, grated
1 egg
2 pinches nutmeg, freshly grated
1 ¾ – 2 cups flour / 245-280 grams
salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
½ cup/115 grams unsalted butter, diced
20 fresh sage leaves, removed from the stem
2 teaspoons/10 ml fresh lemon juice
4 amaretti cookies, crushed (available in Italian markets)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Cut the butternut squash in half and scrape the seeds out with a spoon. You can discard the seeds or roast them into a tasty treat. Drizzle a little olive oil on each squash half and season with salt. Place the squash, cut side down, on a sheet-pan lined with parchment paper and roast in the oven until tender (approximately 45 minutes-1 hour).

2. While the squash is roasting, place the ricotta cheese, parmesan, egg and nutmeg in a mixing bowl and beat with a wooden spoon or spatula until homogenous. Season lightly with salt and black pepper and store covered in the fridge until ready to use.

3. When the squash is tender, remove from the oven and allow it to cool to the point where you can handle it easily. Scoop the flesh out of the squash, place it in the centre of a clean kitchen towel and wring out as much moisture as you can. Measure out 454 grams of the squash and save the rest for another use. Mix the squash into the ricotta mixture until thoroughly combined.

4. Add 1 ¾ cups of the flour to the bowl and stir until a shaggy dough is formed. Pour out the dough onto a lightly floured counter and knead it gently a few times until it comes together. If it is too wet, add some of the remaining flour a pinch at a time and knead a few more times. Place the dough in a covered container in the fridge for 2-3 hours to allow it to firm up before rolling.

5. Bring a large pot of water to the boil and season it heavily with salt (it should almost taste like seawater). Remove the dough from the fridge and place on a lightly floured counter or a large cutting board. Cut off a mandarin orange sized chunk of dough and roll it, using two hands, into a snake-like shape about a half-inch in diameter. Cut the snake into ¾ inch little nuggets. At this point, you can roll the gnocchi off of a grooved gnocchi board (the end of a fork works too) to give it nice little pockets that hold sauce, or you can move them immediately to a floured sheet pan as is.

6. Once you have rolled and cut all of your gnocchi, cook them in the large pot of boiling water until they float, plus an additional 1-2 minutes. Try one at this point to check the texture. You would never let a potato gnocchi cook this long, but these actually get more tender the longer they cook. Be careful though, it is a fine line between just right and overcooked.

7. While the gnocchi are cooking, heat a large frying pan over a medium-high heat and add the butter. Cook until the butter foams and starts turning brown and nutty smelling. Add the sage and toast for a few seconds before adding the lemon juice to stop the butter from burning. Transfer the gnocchi from the water and toss them in the pan for 20-30 seconds, adding a few tablespoons of grated parmesan cheese at the very end. Check for seasoning and serve family style on a large platter, garnished with more plenty more parmesan and the crushed amaretti cookies.

(photos by Michael Sider)

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Owen Lightly is the founder of Butter On The Endive, a full service catering company dedicated to providing inspired food experiences to its clients. A veteran member of many local kitchen teams (among them Aurora Bistro, West, Au Petit Chavignol, Araxi, and Market), he pens Scout’s new Pound Of Butter food column. Read our interview with him here.