Crisp Gnocchi With Brussels Sprouts and Brown Butter
Ali Slagle
• Yield 4 servings
• Time 20 minutes
For a fantastic meal that can be ready in 20 minutes, toss together seared gnocchi and sautéed brussels sprouts with lemon zest, red-pepper flakes and brown butter. The key to this recipe is how you cook the store-bought gnocchi: No need to boil. Just sear them until they are crisp and golden on the outside, and their insides will stay chewy. The resulting texture is reminiscent of fried dough. Shelf-stable and refrigerated gnocchi will both work here, but the shelf-stable ones do crisp up a bit better.
Ingredients
• 1 pound brussels sprouts
• 1 lemon
• ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
• Kosher salt and black pepper
• ½ teaspoon red-pepper flakes
• 1 (18-ounce) package shelf-stable or refrigerated potato gnocchi
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, sliced into 6 pieces
• ½ teaspoon honey
• Freshly grated Parmesan, for serving
Preparation
1. Trim and halve the brussels sprouts. Using a vegetable peeler, peel thick strips of lemon zest, then coarsely chop. (You should have about 2 teaspoons chopped zest.)
2. In a large (preferably 12-inch) skillet, heat 3 tablespoons olive oil over medium-high. Add the brussels sprouts, season with 1/2 teaspoon salt and a few grinds of pepper, then arrange the brussels sprouts in an even layer, cut-side down. Scatter the lemon zest over the top and cook, undisturbed, until the brussels sprouts are well browned underneath, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the red-pepper flakes, stir and cook until the brussels sprouts are crisp-tender, 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer to a medium bowl.
3. In the same skillet, heat the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium-high. Break up any gnocchi that are stuck together, add them to the pan and cook, covered and undisturbed, until golden brown on one side, 2 to 4 minutes. Add the butter and honey, season with salt and a generous amount of black pepper, and cook, stirring, until the butter is golden, nutty smelling and foaming, 1 to 2 minutes. Stir in the brussels sprouts until warmed through. Serve with grated Parmesan.
I made no changes to the recipe. Do NOT ignore the honey. While it is a very small amount it had a outsized impact. It gave the gnocchi a crispness which was wonderful.
I used raw unfiltered buckwheat honey from my Amish grocery--but I'm sure any honey would have a similar effect.
Also---for one pound of sprouts you need a 12" skillet. I dumped them all into the hot skillet and then turned them face down. I will not do that again, I will simply place them one at a time in the correct position.
Last edited by Dave Grubb; 10-16-2020 at 07:54 AM.
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty” ---Sir Winston Churchill "Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills, and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all." ---John W. Gardner “You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” ---C. S. Lewis