Gnocchi di broccoli all burro e pancetta

These broccoli gnocchi in a butter and pancetta creamy emulsion with freshly ground toasted black pepper are to die for! The toasted black pepper is a big part of the final flavour of this dish. If you have never had toasted black pepper, you’re in for a treat! Just toast the black peppercorns in a dry non-stick frying pan at medium heat until they start releasing their aroma, remove the pan from the heat, let the peppercorns cool down, and feed them into the pepper mill… ready to go!

Unbalanced

% Daily Values based on a 2,000 calorie diet

Step 1

Cook the broccoli ( including the stems) in boiling water with a pinch of baking soda until soft (about 12-15 minutes). The baking soda intensifies the colour of green veg. Once soft, sieve the broccoli and place the sieve in ice water for a couple of minutes to stop the cooking and to cool it down. Then take the sieve off the cold water and let it drip down the excess water, as you don’t want excess water in the dough.

Step 2

Put the cold soft broccoli in a large bowl and mash it well with a fork or with your hands. Once you have a smooth purée (should look similar to guacamole), add the flour.

Step 3

Integrate the flour well with a spatula, you want a homogeneous dough. The dough will be slightly sticky… that is ok… don’t add more flour as this would make the gnocchi too stodgy.

Step 4

Seal the bowl with a cover or cling film and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Step 5

While you wait for the dough, heat a large non-stick frying pan and cook the pancetta at medios heat until slightly browned. Remove from the heat and add the butter to the pan so it melts in the residual heat and the pancetta infuses flavour to it.

Step 6

5 minutes before the dough is ready, boil a pot of water and add salt it to taste. You’ll use this water to cook the gnocchi. Have on hand a small strainer or slotted spoon to fish out the gnocchi from the water, and have a large plate next to the pot to put the cooked gnocchi into.

Step 7

Once the 30 minutes wait for the dough have passed, remove the bowl with the dough from the fridge. Pour the sticky dough into a ziplock or similar plastic bag, remove the air from it and zip it closed. With a pair of scissors, cut a corner of the bag so you end up with a hole of about-1.5 cm diameter. Holding the bag in one hand and the scissors in the other. Carefully and slowly squeeze the bag over the pot so a string of dough starts coming out of the hole in the bag. Using the scissors cut the gnocchi so they fall straight into the boiling water. Try to cut them in similar sizes. Do this from close up to the surface to avoid splashing.

Step 8

Slowly keep cutting gnocchi until the first one floats to the surface. Put the bag and scissors to the side , and fish the gnocchi with the slotted spoon or sieve as they float to the surface, and put them on the plate. Once you fished them all, get the bag and scissors and repeat the process until all gnocchi are cooked and on the plate.

Step 9

Put the frying pan with the pancetta and butter back on medium heat and add 5 tbsp of cooking water. As it heats up, it will start bubbling and after about a minute the mix of butter and water will have mixed making a creamy emulsion. Drop in the gnocchi and toss them until they are fully coated and the pancetta has evenly distributed.

Step 10

Plate the gnocchi right away, grind some toasted black pepper on top and serve. Enjoy!