Season for Sunchokes and Morels
We finally went to our first farmers market in Madison last weekend this season. We did already miss the arrival and departure of ramps this season. So we were hoping we would find some morels at least.
We did find morels indeed and we also found some sunchokes. The sunchokes seem to be at their peak in spring as well in these northern parts. We used up most of the morels to top delicately cooked eggs as always but i kept one large one specifically for making a morel cream sauce.
We chopped it fine to be sautéed with butter to draw out the flavors then finished with a dash of cream.
We par boiled and then roasted the sunchokes for one hour at 350 alongwith a whole russet potato. The potato was used to make fresh gnocchi. We used Thomas Kellers recipe and made the gnochi while the potato was warm so it was quite spectacular.
The baked potato was scooped and passed through a ricer.
We added the egg and flour immediately as needed and cut together the ingredients with a bread workbench knife/scooper. Then gently brought it together without kneading much.
Kneading too much will make the gnocchi chewy. We also took care not to add any more flour than was required. More flour dilutes the flavors of potato as well makes the gnocchi chewy. With lesser flour though there is a risk they disintegrate.
We unfortunately did not have a gnocchi paddle so we just used the back of a fork to shape them. Then they went into salted simmering water and cooked till the floated. If you taste them right now you will enjoy the pillowy soft gnocchi with a distinct flavor of the potato.
To finish we sauteed the morels in butter with thyme followed by adding the sunchokes and gnocchi.
We kept adding small ladles of gnocchi cooking water as needed to deglaze while sautéing. We finished with a splash of white wine and sauteed till it was cooked and finished by adding a dash of cream and reducing. We Then plated the ingredient and then deglazed the pan with some pasta cooking water and dash of cream and drizzled this pan sauce over.
Roasted Sunchokes and Potato Gnocchi in morel cream sauce
- Total Time: 2 hours
- Yield: Serves 2
Ingredients
- 1 Russet Potato
- 50 gm all purpose flour
- 1 egg yellow
- 2 cup sunchokes
- 1 tsp olive oil
- 1 large morel mushroom cleaned and chopped fine
- 2 strands thyme
- 2 tsp butter
- 1 Tbsp white wine
- 1 Tbsp cream
- Salt for cooking water and seasoning
Instructions
- Heat 1 litre of salted water to a simmer and cook sunchokes covered for 30 minutes.
- Drain and add sunchokes to an oiled pan and coat sunchokes with olive oil and season with salt
- Roast at 350 F for 60 to 90 minutes alongwith a potato in another pan till potato yields to a knife pierced through it and sunchokes are cooked and roasted.
- Remove the Cut potato and slice in half.
- Set large pot with water and salt to simmer.
- Pass potato through ricer.
- Make a well and dust flour to protect egg on the warm potato. Add egg yolk to the well and dust with flour again.
- Cut with a breadworkers bench knife and mix ingredients together dusting and adding flour as needed. Gently bring it to a ball and mix gently till dough is moist and non sticky and leaves a thumb impression. Add flour only as much is needed.
- Move the dough and cut it into two portions. Clean the workbench and roll the two balls to make them smooth then on the workbench individually roll them under the fingers of both hands to form two long cylinders.
- Cut the cylinders into smaller portions as needed. Then roll them in the palms and shape them onto a fork.
- Drop them into the simmering water.
- Meanwhile in a sauté pan melt some butter and when hot add the chopped morels and thyme. Once the morels sweat add the sunchokes and sauté. Add little bit of pasta cooking water as needed to deglaze while sauteing.
- Once the gnocchi float to the top add them to the sauté pan, sauté and then deglaze with white wine. Cook the wine off and finish with a dash of cream and reduce it a bit and then plate the ingredients.
- Deglaze the pan with some pasta water and cream and reduce and then drizzle over the plated ingredients.
- Prep Time: 90 mins
- Cook Time: 30 mins
- Category: Entree
- Cuisine: Italian
