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Potato gnocchi with girolles, spring vegetables and sage butter

Make the most of asparagus season. Cook our tasty and seasonal ‘Potato gnocchi with girolles, summer vegetables and sage butter’.

Ingredients (serves 4 as a starter, gnocchi as per recipe)

Potato gnocchi

  • 300g potato (700g raw weight) (ideally Desiree)
  • 65g ‘00’ flour
  • 1 egg yolk
  • Parmesan, grated (to taste)
  • Salt and pepper

Method

  1. Heat an oven to Gas 6/200ºC/400ºF. Bake the potatoes for 1 – 1 1/2 hours or until soft through.
  2. When cooked cut the potatoes in half and scrape the insides into a ricer or sieve and pass. Whilst the potato is still warm add the flour, yolks, parmesan, salt and pepper. Bring together to form a soft dough, trying not to overwork the mix.
  3. Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil.
  4. Roll small amounts of the dough into lengths 1.5 to 2cm thick (½ to ¾ inch), then cut to a similar size.
  5. Carefully lift the shaped gnocchi into the boiling water. Allow them to rise to the surface and then cook for a further 20-30 seconds, before removing and placing on a well-oiled tray.
  6. Place the gnocchi in a fridge to cool and firm up.

Vegetables

  • 15g unsalted butter
  • 55g girolles, picked over
  • 85g fresh peas, blanched and refreshed
  • 85g fresh (or frozen) broad beans (prepared weight), blanched, refreshed and shelled
  • 85g asparagus, blanched and refreshed and cut into 1 inch lengths
  • 4 braised baby artichokes, choke removed and cut into ½ or ¼, cooking liquor reserved
  • 5 breakfast radishes, cut into ½ or ¼, blanched and refreshed
  • 55g unsalted butter
  • 3 – 4 sage leaves
  • Salt, pepper, lemon juice
  • Pea tendrils for garnish

Method

  1. Heat a little oil in a sauté pan and add the drained gnocchi. Sauté until lightly coloured top and bottom. Remove and reserve.
  2. Wipe out the pan, add a little more oil and pan fry the drained and dried artichokes (HtC23) until caramelised on their cut surface, remove and reserve.
  3. Add 15g butter then the girolles to the pan and sauté lightly, remove and reserve.
  4. Melt 55g butter in the frying pan, add the sage leaves and cook until the sage is crisp and the butter foaming, and very lightly colouring. Splash in a little of the artichoke braising liquor then add the gnocchi, girolles and vegetables to warm through. Season with salt, pepper and plenty of lemon juice and serve immediately.