Castagnaccio - Tuscan chestnut "cake"

Chestnut flour is still an unusual ingredient in our kitchens, unfortunately.
To mill chestnut into flour, they are first dried over wood fire and this imparts the resulting product with a delicate and distinctive smoky aroma that make this flour pretty unique.
Being a nut´s flour, it doesn't contain gluten and so it is an useful ingredient for gluten-free pantries.
In Italy, chestnut flour is a traditional ingredient of the center-north portion of the peninsula. In Tuscany, notably, chestnut flour is used in a savory-sweet cake called Castagnaccio (castagna being the Italian for chestnut).
This cake is usually enriched with flavorful extra-virgin olive oil, pine nuts and rosemary but the main variation point in local recipes revolve around the use of cocoa powder in it.
Chestnut flour, with its deep rich sweet and smoky aromas, is just a perfect companion to chocolate and the use of a little cocoa powder in the Castagnaccio can only do it good, in my opinion.
I personally, simply adore rosemary in my Castagnaccio. When baked to crispy perfection, this herb lends its heady green-field aromas to this earthy densely satisfying cake; a perfect reminder of Tuscan sunbathed fields.
Try it once, and you will be hooked. You have been warned!

A gift from the mountains

Few days ago I posted about my last catered dinner; it was quite an event with 30 people to serve and a 10 courses menu. Out of them I have already posted my recipe for Muhammara, a delicious middle-eastern dip based on roasted red peppers and walnuts; few minutes ago Rachel from A Scot in London asked me about the chestnut gnocchi. They were in effect one of the most popular course of the whole meal, many of the guest were just telling me "If you are going to eat any of the leftovers, just make yourself a dish of gnocchi!". To tell you the truth, we were tasting them while they were sautéed with the orange butter and I quite loved them too!
So here I give you the simple recipe to prepare these gnocchi at home.

Chestnut Gnocchi

Ingredients (makes 1kg of gnocchi):

• 700g floury potatoes;
• 200g all purpose flour;
• 100g chestnut flour;
• 1 large egg;
• Salt.

Procedure:
Cut the potatoes in chunks of roughly the same size and boil them into salted water. When cooked, drain the potatoes and let them cool down a bit. You will need to process them while they are still warm; so when cold enough to handle, peel them and pass them through a potato ricer or a food mill into a bowl. Add a pinch of salt, the two flours and the egg mixing the whole together using a spoon or your hands. Let the dough rest for a couple of hours so the flour gets properly hydrated.
When ready to shape your gnocchi, bring a big pot of salted water to a boil, cut little chunks of dough and flouring your hands and the working surface, shape them into sausages (their thickness will determine the size of your gnocchi).
The dough usually comes pretty soft so the gnocchi won’t keep their shape if cut and left on a tray so you will need to blanch them right after being cut. To do so, hold one of the sausages in your hand over the pot with the boiling water and cut little pieces of it using a scissor letting them drop into the water (to keep the scissor from sticking to the dough, dip its tip into the hot water before cutting each gnocco).
Gnocchi need only few minutes to cook; when they start floating on top of the water they are practically ready. Using a slotted spoon, drain them into a bowl of cold water to stop the cooking and then let them drain properly before transferring into a tray or another bowl while you keep on cooking the rest.
When all the dough is over and the gnocchi are nice and at room temperature you can either store them in your fridge or sauté them in you sauce; they will warm up and become nice and fluffy.
To try the dish I made for my dinner, you will need to make some orange butter mixing soft butter with fresh orange zest in the proportion of 2 big oranges per 250gr of butter, and a pinch of cayenne pepper.
Let the butter melt on a pan, sauté your gnocchi into it and serve them with shaves of hard pecorino cheese on top. Really delish!

Do you have any other recipe that you have read mentioned in my post and would like posted? Let me know.