Brown butter sage gnocchi
Soft gnocchi pan-fried in nutty brown butter with crispy sage leaves and parmesan, the fancy-restaurant dish that’s five ingredients at home.
- 25 min total
- 20 min hands-on
- A little more hands-on
- Serves 2
- About $2.42 a serving
- 620 calories
- Vegetarian
Dolly says: Read the steps once before you start. Everything goes smoother after that.
Ingredients
For 2 servings.
- ¼ cup fresh sage, leaves
- ¼ cup parmesan wedge, finely grated
- ¼ cup butter
- 1 package potato gnocchi, 16 oz
From your pantry
- 1 tbsp salt
- ¼ tsp black pepper
Each serving has about 620 calories, 13 g protein, 80 g carbs and 27 g fat, and costs about $2.42 at typical US grocery prices. Both are estimates from what the recipe uses.
Missing something?
- No parmesan wedge? Grated parmesan works.
- No butter? Ghee works.
Steps
Tap an underlined word for a quick explanation.
Fill a large pot with water, add the salt, cover and over high heat.
Bring to a boil. It means heating a liquid on high until it’s fully boiling before you move on. A lid on the pot gets it there faster, which makes it a good moment to chop something.
How you’ll know: Big bubbles break all over the surface, and they keep coming when you lift the lid.
High heat
Pick the sage leaves off their stems and finely the parmesan.
Grate. Grating means rubbing food across the holes of a grater to make fine shreds or flakes. It spreads cheese, garlic or ginger evenly through a dish so it melts right in.
How you’ll know: Even shreds fall off the back of the grater, and you stop while the piece is still big enough to hold.
the butter in a large over medium heat and cook, swirling, 3 to 5 minutes, until it foams, smells nutty and has - specks on the bottom.
Melt. Melting means gently heating something solid, like butter or cheese, until it turns liquid. Low or medium heat keeps it from browning or burning.
How you’ll know: It’s smooth and liquid, and butter may foam a little but hasn’t turned brown.
Skillet. A skillet is a frying pan: wide and flat with low, sloped sides. The shape lets steam escape, so food browns instead of stewing.
How you’ll know: It’s the pan you’d fry an egg in, and a 10 or 12 inch one handles most recipes.
Golden brown. Golden brown is the color of good toast, somewhere between yellow and light brown. It means the outside is cooked and crisp but not burnt.
How you’ll know: It looks like toast and smells toasty; dark brown with a bitter smell means it went too far.
Brown. Browning means cooking until the outside turns brown, which is where a lot of savory flavor comes from. Give food room and time without stirring, or it steams and stays gray.
How you’ll know: The food looks brown rather than gray, and the kitchen smells toasty and savory.
Medium heatTimer: 4 min
Dolly’s tip: Watch it closely once it foams. It goes from brown to burnt in about 30 seconds.Add the sage leaves and let them sizzle 30 seconds, until crisp. Lift them onto a plate and turn the heat to low.
Low heatTimer: 30 sec
Drop the gnocchi into the water and cook until they float, 2 to 3 minutes. Lift them out with a slotted spoon straight into the .
Boil. Boiling means heating a liquid until big bubbles rise and break all over the surface. It’s the fastest way to cook pasta, potatoes and eggs, because it’s as hot as water gets.
How you’ll know: Bubbles are breaking across the whole surface, not just at the edges, and steam is rising.
Skillet. A skillet is a frying pan: wide and flat with low, sloped sides. The shape lets steam escape, so food browns instead of stewing.
How you’ll know: It’s the pan you’d fry an egg in, and a 10 or 12 inch one handles most recipes.
High heatTimer: 2 min 30 sec
Dolly’s tip: A little water clinging to them is fine. It helps the butter coat them.Turn the heat to medium-high and cook the gnocchi in the brown butter 3 to 4 minutes, turning, until in spots.
Golden brown. Golden brown is the color of good toast, somewhere between yellow and light brown. It means the outside is cooked and crisp but not burnt.
How you’ll know: It looks like toast and smells toasty; dark brown with a bitter smell means it went too far.
Medium-high heatTimer: 3 min 30 sec
Serve topped with the crispy sage, parmesan and pepper.
Plan this in Dollop, and get the grocery list
Dollop puts this dinner on a night that suits your week, lists only what you still need to buy, and walks you through each step while you cook.
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