Pasta noodles are a long-time love of mine. Rigatoni, capellini, bucatini, linguini, macaroni, spaghetti, whatever form it takes, I’m a fan. They are the perfect vehicles for delivering a myriad of delectable sauce options to your palate. (Like this favorite family recipe.) “Why are you writing about pasta noodles when gnocchi is the subject of this recipe?” Because Dear Reader, up until recently, gnocchi was not held nearly as high in my esteem. Those little potato pillows rarely hit the right texture mark for me – they were either too dense and gummy or too mushy and mealy – adjectives you definitely want to stay away from when describing a meal worthy of eating! This texture issue has prevented me from cooking gnocchi for years. (It also doesn’t help that every dang time I have tried to make them at home resulted in a complete and miserable failure!) Recently, I decided to lift my ban on gnocchi and give these little potato puffs another chance. While I still suck at making gnocchi from scratch (some things never change), dried pasta companies (like De Cecco) have upped their game and now produce a fairly tasty, pre-packaged gnocchi to swoop in and save the day. Hooray for De Cecco!
Having consumed more than my fair share of heavy, meat-laden food this week (I’m looking at you Super Bowl Sunday!), I wanted to try and go vegetarian for a night. {Gasps all around} Yes, yes, I know – this is a very rare, once in a blue moon occurrence, so let’s run with it, OK? I went to the grocery store with no real idea of what I was going to make except that it going to be meatless and include a package of gnocchi I picked up a few weeks ago. While perusing the produce aisle, I was seduced by the deep green leaves of some chard and decided to give it a whirl. Truthfully, I’ve never actually cooked with chard before. I am much more familiar with its bitterer brethren “Collard” and “Mustard,” but chard and I had not been properly introduced. Tonight seemed like the perfect opportunity to say “Hello.”
I figured Rob was going to balk at this whole meatless thing and probably order a pizza or heat up some leftover chili if this foray into vegetarian food was deemed a kitchen failure, so I just decided to go all out and whip up something regardless of his preferences. Hence, I headed straight to the mushroom section next. You see, Rob has a texture issue surrounding mushrooms that is similar to what I stated above with regard to gnocchi; he finds them too rubbery and spongey. The flavor is fine, but the texture throws him off. Well, sorry Babe. This dish must have mushrooms; more specifically, shitake mushrooms. The gnocchi and chard an accompaniment with a “meatier” element to help this self-proclaimed carnivore get on board with a vegetarian dish.
I scuttled home to attempt to throw together a palatable dish with a bunch of ingredients my darling husband was going to be less than thrilled about. While laying out all the components, I had a last minute epiphany and decided to throw in a sunny lemon to balance out the predominately earthy flavors and add a zippy brightness. Thank heavens I did! The acid provided a much needed counterpart to the chard/mushrooms and lightened up what could have potentially been a much heavier dish. The best part – ROB LOVED IT! He ate the entire plate (mushrooms and all) and I could not have been more shocked – in a good way!
Gnocchi with Sautéed Chard, Onions, and Shitake Mushrooms
Serves 2-3 for a full meal, 6 as a side (Would be great as an accompaniment to grilled chicken)
Ingredients:
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 2 sprigs of fresh rosemary
- 1 small onion (I used the smallest one I could get my hands on – slightly larger than a lemon), thinly sliced into half rounds
- 3-4 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
- 1 bunch of green chard
- 10 ounces of shitake mushrooms (sliced)
- 1 package gnocchi
- 1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese, with additional for serving
- ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes, with additional for serving if desired
- 1 lemon
- Salt and pepper
Directions:
Remove the leaves from the rosemary and finely chop. Discard the stems. Using a large, deep skillet, turn your burner to the lowest setting and drop in the butter and rosemary. Do this at the very beginning of when you start prepping your ingredients. You want to melt the butter completely, but not have it start to brown. This gives the rosemary a chance to infuse into the butter and therefore provide a subtle herbaceousness throughout the dish. Once the butter has melted, give the rosemary a good stir around the pan and turn off the burner while you attend to the rest of the prep work. Also start heating well salted water in a large pot so it comes to a boil. (We will use this for the gnocchi later.)
Side Note: As for the onion and garlic, if any of you are like me, you are probably tempted to break out your handy food processor and chop up the onion and garlic instead of manually slicing them. Please do not succumb to this temptation. Trust me – I am all about shortcuts in kitchen prep-work, but this time it is a mistake and will overpower the entire dish. You see, chopping actually heightens the flavor of these two ingredients, whereas slicing mellows their sharpness. Click here for an explanation as to why slicing makes a difference.
Remove the leaves from the chard with a knife by cutting as close to the stem as possible and set the leaves aside. Be sure to reserve the stems. At the end of this process, you will have a lot of leaves piled on your cutting board and I know the prospect of thinly slicing ALL OF THEM can seem a bit overwhelming. Well, never fear! I have a technique that I find helpful for quickly slicing large and tough leafy greens. Put one of the largest leaves flat on your cutting board and stack 6 or 7 more directly on top of it. I usually put any smaller, random cut pieces in the middle section of the stack. Take the edge of the bottom leaf and roll it up like you would a cigar or taquito.
Hold the “leaf log” in place and slice horizontally with your chef’s knife beginning at the top and working your way down. Repeat this process until all of the leaves have been used.
Cut off the bottom of the chard stems and discard. Dice the remaining stems into small pieces and set aside.
Using your microplane, zest the lemon and then cut the lemon in half with a knife – we will use this later. (For those of you have not yet discovered the beautiful ease of a microplane, please do yourself a favor and purchase one at Amazon
Now that all of the prep-work is finished, turn the burner on the stove back on to medium high and reheat the rosemary infused butter. Once the butter is hot, add the onions and cook until softened, stirring occasionally. Sprinkle some salt and pepper on the onions. Add in the mushrooms and garlic and cook until the mushrooms begin to release their liquid. (The pan may seem a bit dry when you first add in the mushrooms. Don’t fret yet! You will be amazed by how much liquid mushrooms give off when cooking, so give it a minute before adding an additional liquid. If you do find that you are in danger of burning the ingredients due to lack of liquid, feel free to add a splash of olive oil or a small piece of butter to help lubricate the pan.) After the mushrooms start releasing their liquid, add the diced chard stems, sliced leaves, red pepper flakes, and lemon zest. Sprinkle some salt and pepper on the mixture and lightly squeeze one of the lemon halves on top. Stir to make sure all of the ingredients are well coated with the seasonings and butter and turn the heat down to medium low.
As the greens are sautéing (stir occasionally to keep the bottom from burning), carefully drop the gnocchi into the boiling pot of water. They should sink to the bottom. Just let the little potato puffs sit there as you keep an eye on the greens. After a few minutes, the gnocchi should rise to surface on their own when they are ready to be removed from the water. As the gnocchi rise, remove them with a slotted spoon and add them to the greens. Now take about a half cup of the cooking water and add it to the skillet. Sprinkle your grated parmesan cheese over the dish and stir well to incorporate all of the ingredients. Feel free to add more of the pasta water if your sauce is a bit dry.
Serve with a sprinkling of parmesan on top and a few cracks of fresh pepper. I also added some additional red pepper flakes for color and a tiny bit of extra spice.
