Roasted Gnocchi with Butternut Squash and Cashews

Actually, the title of this dish basically sums it up, but it sure is tasty. Here’s how to make it:

Cube a small butternut squash. Toss it in olive oil and coarse salt. Roast for 10 minutes, then add an equivalent volume of gnocchi and toss it all together. Roast another 10 minutes. Add and toss about a third as much broken raw cashew nuts as you used squash/gnocchi and a dash of balsamic vinegar, roast 10 minutes more.

It’s really exceptionally tasty. I had a large first helping and then completely gratuitous seconds.

I’d meant to add rosemary, but forgot. It doesn’t really need it, but it would definitely have been an improvement.

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6 thoughts on “Roasted Gnocchi with Butternut Squash and Cashews

  1. david Post author

    No, definitely not! Gnocchi isn’t a dry pasta (or it shouldn’t be), so is moist enough that it roasts perfectly well without any boiling.

  2. Ulises

    Brilliant, thanks for the tip.

    I just finished making the dish, though with modifications. Firstly I used more varied nuts: wallnuts, hazelnuts, pistacchio and cashew. Secondly, I added a dash of cream before roasting. Definitely yummy.

    U

  3. david Post author

    Glad you liked it!

    The more varied nuts is a good idea. I mostly just used cashews because I always have a huge pile of them to hand (my local health food stores sells broken raw cashews for a relative pittance. I use them in making muesli for my breakfasts).

    Cream is also a good idea, but I’m trying to cut down on my dairy intake a little bit. What point did you add it at? Near the end, or did you cook it all the way through?

    The dish is definitely a bit dry as described: I was originally planning on roasting some chopped tomatoes with it as well to give it a bit more moisture, but unfortunately only discovered my tomatoes had gone gross just before cooking and couldn’t be bothered to go out and get some more.

  4. Ulises

    Well, I added a bit of cream near the end (semi-skimmed) and topped it up with semi-skimmed milk too. I didn’t want to add it since the beginning, and cook everything through with it, as it would end up boiled (though certainly yummy) and I wanted some crispiness to creep in.

    I was about to ask you how you managed to get the moisture in. Perhaps some kitchen foil would do the trick. The one thing about cream is that it cancels out the balsamic vinegar, so perhaps a dash of soy sauce may also add to the dish. Who knows, eh? :)

    U

  5. david Post author

    The moisture mostly comes from the squash. The salt draws it out and the olive oil keeps too much of it from boiling away. The balsamic vinegar then gives it a top up at the end.

    I tend to be averse to using soy sauce in cooking (I’m fine with it as a condiment). Not sure why though. Maybe it just feels like cheating :-)

    One option would be to do do some sort of glaze instead of the cream. e.g. I thought about something like http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/sandra-lee/balsamic-glazed-butternut-squash-recipe/index.html, but decided I didn’t feel like it.

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