Cornflour Gnocchi with Artichokes – Plant-Based Recipe

As you may well know, before creating and launching Fiesta, I’ve developed and launched a plant-based restaurant and natural wine bar called Living Vino. This was my first experience in full-service restaurants (previously only dealt with wine sales, wine events and education). The menu evolved from snacks, bowls and pastas format to a more eclectic mix of fairly popular starters like hummus and cauliflower wings, to vegan burgers (with our own homemade patties) and pasta dishes that will entice any hardcore meat-eater as well – like gnocchi with artichokes and truffled mushroom tagliatelle. 

There was this one dish that usually made people truly forget they are in a plant-based restaurant and fork out good money to enjoy it – our homemade gnocchi with pesto made of local herbs and nuts and topped with quarters of cooked artichokes and rocket.

This time, I wanted to recreate this successful dish by making gnocchi with cornflour instead. This creates a even lighter, gluten-free, texture profile without sacrifice on flavours and adding more nutritious corn to your diet.

Cornflour Gnocchi Recipe

Cornflour gnocchi recipe creates light, gluten-free potato dumplings by combining 500g of baked, riced potatoes with roughly 150g of finely milled cornflour (not coarse), 10g of cornstarch, and an egg replacer (30ml). Knead a bit, roll into ropes, cut into 1-inch pieces, and gently boil until they float (approx. 2-3 mins). It is that easy, though a bit messy!

It was a great success. Soft gnocchi that you may want to fry to achieve a crispy skin, and then combined with aromatic pesto and delicious artichokes – you’d enjoy it for sure. 

I know, some dishes take a carnivore recipe and try to emulate the flavours using plant-based ingredients, but there are also such hero dishes like this gnocchi that stand out on their own – a guest doesn’t even realise in many cases that they are eating a plant-based dish.

I believe that generally, there is an upward trend to include more plant-based food on our tables, and it will continue.  And whilst I do not necessarily think that vegan burgers are evil because they try to emulate the meaty texture and flavour profile, the inherently vegan dishes are the ones that meat-eaters will come back to more and more. In my view, the focus should be on nutrition – to provide enough protein, good fats and slow carbs with plenty of fibre and then the question of whether it is simply an alternative or entirely new and creative dish is secondary. 

Call it a Mexi-terranean dish or not, but it follows my Flavour Matrix that I use for plant-based tacos, and it works.

I invite you to make this cornflour gnocchi dish and enjoy the vibrancy and liveliness of plants.