Tuesday, August 3, 2010

When good diets go bad

There are some ingredients that just mess with my sense of right and wrong.

Perhaps I should explain. A piece of chocolate has never sent me on a robbery spree or landed me in jail on assault charges -although I will not hesitate to throw a few elbows for a corner piece of cake.

I'm saying that I know it's wrong to make a sauce using a stick of butter. I know it's wrong to add a mass of pancetta to that melted stick of butter. But this is gnocchi we're talking about. Delicious, puffy gobs of potato-ey goodness. And this wasn't just any gnocchi. This was sweet potato gnocchi. Rules must be bent.

I suppose I could have done a light marinara sauce. But I wanted to play with that natural sweetness from the sweet potato. A brown butter sauce was a good start. And to the sweet, why not add some salty? The pancetta was calling my name. More likely an artery's name, but what do you know? We're named the same thing. So pancetta it was. A bit of nutmeg, a couple of healthy pinches of cinnamon, fresh rosemary and little grating of Parmesan rounded it out. Yum.

We had a salad with it, so I think that makes it a little better, right? But come on, a little indulgence once in a while is never a bad thing.



Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Pancetta
(makes four servings)

1 lb. of sweet potato gnocchi (I picked mine up from the Dormont Farmers Market.)
3/4 stick unsalted butter
4 oz. diced pancetta
1/2 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
2 healthy pinches ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons fresh rosemary
course salt and fresh ground pepper
Parmesan cheese

Melt butter in a medium skillet. Add pancetta and cook until brown and slightly crispy. Add the rosemary and continue cooking for another 2 minutes. Add the nutmeg, cinnamon, and salt and pepper to taste.
Meanwhile, cook gnocchi according to package directions. Drain well and add to butter sauce. Toss with the sauce until coated.. Divide among plates and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Eat now, regret later.

2 comments:

  1. Good heavens.. this is the stuff dreams are made of.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I LOVE this!! Thanks for the post. It works with bacon too if you're in a pinch.

    ReplyDelete