Brussels sprout fried gnocchi with gremolata and hazelnuts
I’ve been fiddling with this one for a while. Early iterations were a little dry on the plate, and I took a frustrating wrong turn into sauces. A dab of crème fraiche, something with tomato, a splash of reduced stock? Sherry?
Really, Roger, is that your solution to everything?
Perhaps. But nothing seemed quite right with the roast-bitter of the sprouts, and the gnocchi ends up soggy.
Tossing in some really good chicken stock at the end and reducing it fast would probably work great, but eventually my brain lit up with “… gremolata?” and here we are. So let’s lean into the crispness of the fried gnocchi.
The sausage meat makes this a bit more substantial, but it’s perfectly good (and vegan, and quicker) without.
“Gremolata” by the way is just a mix of parsley, lemon zest, and garlic. Like salsa verde it’s a great go-to condiment for grilled meat if you don’t have a better idea.
Ingredients:
Gnocchi, 500g (see note)
Brussels sprouts, 500g
Hazelnuts, 60g
Parsley, about 25g (small bunch)
Lemon, 1
Garlic, 1 clove
Good olive oil, 1tbsp
Optional:
Sausages, 200g (something plain-ish)
Note: This serves four comfortably, although gnocchi portions are a weird one. 80-100g of dry pasta is plenty per person, but that much gnocchi always looks like bugger all on the plate. The implicit semantics of the supermarket suggest that a standard 400g bag would serve 2 or 4, but 200g of gnocchi is clearly excessive per capita. Here I’ve gone with 125g each. This is a solid main course with no sides, but does leave you buying two packs. If you don’t want awkward leftovers, 100g each will be fine, especially if you’re making the sausage meat variant.
Instructions:
Set the oven to 200.
Trim and halve sprouts. Nip off any woody bottoms, and don’t worry if you lose some outer leaves. Very roughly chop the hazelnuts - nothing fine, we're talking not much more than halving them.
Zest the lemon, chop the parsley, crush the garlic, and assemble it all into a rough gremolata by stirring it together with the oil, about a tablespoon of the lemon juice, and a little salt.
If you're using the sausages, remove them from their casings. Crumble them into a pan with some oil at a moderate heat and fry for 8-10 mins, stirring to break up any clumps. "Crumble" there is doing some work, isn't it. Raw sausages do not crumble. Hey, I'm trying to evoke size and consistency here, not promise you clean hands.
Anyway. Put the sausage meat to one side once it's cooked and browned a little.
Toss the sprouts in a little oil, and scatter them over a baking tray, trying to keep them spaced out. Roast them for about 15 mins, until charring a bit and just softening. I like to mix them up half way through, but my oven is a bastard for uneven heat spots.
Mix in the hazelnuts and roast for another 3-4 mins.
Heat some more oil in a good sized pan, and fry the gnocchi quite hot - stirring periodically - for 5-6 minutes. You want a little browning and external crunch. Add the sprouts, nuts, and about ¾ of the gremolata. If you're using the sausage meat, add it back at this stage too.
Work everything together and cook for another couple of minutes until it's brightly aromatic and we've taken the edge off the garlic.
Dish it out into bowls, and serve sprinkled with the reserved gremolata for some extra citrus pop.
I can’t really tell you what the hazelnuts are doing here. It’s frustrating when something works and you don’t know why. Could be the crunch, but I think they’re also bridging between the savoury and the light notes? There’s toastiness from the browning on the gnocchi and the char on the sprouts, then the umami-bitter of the sprouts themselves, and it all might be a bit of a sharp swerve if we went straight into lemon zest with nothing to even it all out. Fucked if I know. It’s tasty though.
Completely by luck I paired this last night with an Alsace orange pinot gris, and I 100% recommend doing this on purpose in future.