Do you love gnocchi? Then definitely try this Texel variety. Made with potatoes and beets from the island. The beetroot gives a red colour to the gnocchi, so this is also a recipe to remember for Christmas.

Serve the gnocchi with a beetroot pesto, which completes the dish.

Ingredients for 2 persons

For the gnocchi

• 300 grams potatoes from Texel
• 150 grams beetroot from Novalishoeve
• 125 grams of flour
• 6 grams of salt
• 1 egg
• Seaweed powder
  

For the pesto

• 100 grams of chopped beetroot (or rocket)
• 50 grams hazelnuts
• 50 grams sheep's cheese from De Waddel or Kaasboerderij Wezenspyk
• 2 decilitres olive oil
• 2 cloves of garlic
• Pinch of salt

Method

For the gnocchi

If you don't buy pre-cooked beets, make sure you still cook them. Summer beets have a cooking time of 20 to 30 minutes. Winter beets have a longer cooking time: 1.5 to 2 hours. Cook the beets with skin in plenty of water. The beets are done when you can smoothly stick a fork into them. Tip: do this the evening before, so you can get started right afterwards with this recipe.

Preheat the oven to 200 °C . Peel the potatoes and place them on an oven rack. Prick holes in the potatoes with a fork, brush them with oil and seaweed powder. Roast the potatoes in the oven for 60 minutes. Then let them cool for 10 minutes. Cook

Slice open the potatoes, remove the cooked potatoes and push them through the mash press or mash them. Mash the cooked beetroot with a hand blender until smooth. Mix the potato and beet puree with salt, flour and egg. Make this into a dough, making sure it is firm but also supple.

Then spread the dough out on a cool floured work surface. Let it cool well. Make long sausages and put them, wrapped in foil, in the fridge for at least another hour. In a large pan, boil salted water and, using a fork, cut the sausages into pieces about 3 centimetres long. Carefully slide them into the water. They rise to the top when they are cooked, which is after about 3 minutes. Then immediately dip them in ice water and let them drain on kitchen paper

For the pesto

Toast the hazelnuts in a frying pan. Briefly grind the garlic, olive oil and salt in a food processor. Then add the beetroot, nuts and cheese and grind again to a puree. Remove the mixture from the bowl, pour it into a clean jar and pour a little more oil over it. This way, you can keep the leftover pesto in the fridge for a few days.

Just before serving, heat the gnocchi in a frying pan with melted butter. Serve the dish with a tablespoon of pesto.

Have fun cooking!

This recipe is from the biscuit book Zilt. The book that Texans: Annette van Ruitenburg, Ruth de Ruwe, Ellen van Straten, Sabien Bosman in collaboration with Marieke Dekker of IVN.

More Texel recipes