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Thyme Table recipes · Spring

Wild garlic gnocchi

By Rosa Bell, head tutor · · 6 min read

  • Serves4
  • Prep30 min
  • Cook1 hr 10
  • LevelEasy
An ink and wash drawing from above of a kitchen table with three handwritten-looking recipe cards, a bunch of fresh herbs, a halved lemon, a wooden spoon and a bowl of flour
The tutors' table on the first morning of the spring course.

For three weeks every spring the woods behind the school smell of garlic. This is the dish we make first, every year: soft potato gnocchi, bright green with wild garlic, in brown butter with lemon.

Before you start

Wild garlic grows in damp, shady woods from March to May. Pick young leaves away from paths, take only a few from each clump, and wash them well. If you are not sure what you have found, crush a leaf: wild garlic smells strongly of garlic, and its poisonous look-alikes smell of nothing.

Floury potatoes matter more than anything else here, because waxy potatoes make heavy, gluey gnocchi. Bake them whole rather than boiling them, so they stay dry, and press them while they are still hot.

Do not rush the dough. Add the flour a little at a time and stop as soon as it holds together. The less you work it, the lighter the gnocchi will be.

Method

  1. Heat the oven to 200°C (180°C fan). Prick the potatoes and bake them on a tray for about an hour, until soft right through.
  2. While they bake, blanch the wild garlic in boiling water for ten seconds, cool it in iced water, squeeze it dry and blend it with the egg yolk until smooth.
  3. Halve the hot potatoes, scoop out the flesh and press it through a ricer onto a floured board. Leave it to steam for two minutes.
  4. Make a well, add the garlic paste, cheese and salt, then sprinkle over two thirds of the flour. Bring it together gently with your hands, adding more flour only if it sticks.
  5. Roll the dough into ropes as thick as your thumb and cut them into 2 cm pieces. Roll each piece over a fork if you like ridges.
  6. Cook the gnocchi in batches in well-salted boiling water. When they float, give them 30 seconds more, then lift them out with a slotted spoon.
  7. Melt the butter in a wide pan until it smells nutty and turns golden. Add the gnocchi, toss for a minute, squeeze over the lemon and finish with the flowers and plenty of pepper.

Make them ahead

Uncooked gnocchi freeze well. Freeze them on a floured tray, tip them into a bag once firm, and cook them from frozen, adding a minute.

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