Gnocchi With Tomato and Bechamel Sauce

I love fresh pasta. Oh sure, dried pasta has its place and I do use it. In fact, for many dishes, dried pasta seems to work better and yet, given a choice, fresh pasta will always be my preference.

Gnocchi is technically a pasta and has been around since roman times, but it is also a dumpling and throughout Europe and northern Africa there is a strong regional tradition of the dumpling; everything from the traditional Roman potato based dumpling to the German Spatzle and even the french choux pastry version served with a cheese sauce.

The thing about fresh pasta is the mouth feel; soft and silky almost like a sauce itself. Overwork the dough and you end up with a tough and chewy pasta that does not quite feel right when you are biting in to it. This is especially true of potato based gnocchi. When making this you are trying to amalgamate the flour into the potato but gently massage them together. You are also looking for a soft but not a sticky dough. Once the eggs go in the mix should come together pretty quick.

This dough is a blank canvas and you can think about what you are going to be serving with it. Bechamel sauce lends itself to flavours like nutmeg, salt, pepper, even chili. These can also be incorporated into the gnocchi. You can even substitute the potato for pumpkin which would benefit from a healthy dose of nutmeg - a classic pairing.

A final tip; When rolling the gnocchi out into the sausages, thinner is better. When you cut the gnocchi I believe the best size is something similar to an old fashioned knuckle bone. When cooking the gnocchi they will puff up so if you have something too large it wont fit easily in the mouth and you will get too much of the gnocchi and not enough of the sauce.

Ingredients

1 kg mashing potatoes
2-3 cups of flour
2 eggs
seasoning
1 large onion, finely diced
1 medium carrot, peeled and finely diced
2 cloves garlic
2 tins whole peeled tomatoes
seasoning
1/4 teaspoon of sugar
25 grams of butter
2 tablespoons of flour
milk
1 cup of gated cheese


Method

Boil the potatoes as per normal until cooked and ready for mashing. Either mash or pass through a potato riced with a medium screen. Spread out on a chopping board and sprinkle over 2 cups of flour and eggs and start kneading together. Add the remaining flour until the dough starts to loose its stickiness and comes together.

Work the dough into a ball and cut into eights. On a floured surface, roll out into thin sausages and chop with a sharp knife.

To cook, bring a large stockpot with about 5 litres of heavily salted water to the boil and drop the gnocchi in about 20 at a time. Boil until the gnocchi has floated to the surface for about a minute. Remove with a slotted spoon and dry on a tea towel. Continue until all gnocchi are cooked. If you are wanting to freeze the gnocchi at this point, lay out on a sheet of grease-proof paper and free-flow freeze before placing in a bag.

Once the gnocchi are cooked they can be poached in the tomato sauce, sprinkled with cheese and lightly grilled. My favourite is to fry the cooked gnocchi in a little oil and butter until lightly browned before adding to a lasagna dish, tossing in a decent amount of tomato sauce, a layer of cheese sauce and cooking in a 180 degree oven for 20 minutes.

For the tomato sauce

Sweat over a low heat the onion, carrot and garlic so it is softened but not browned. Add the tomatoes, seasoning and the sugar. Simmer until cooked through then blend with a blender or a stick blender. Add to the gnocchi and stir to combine.

For the bechamel sauce

In a small saucepan, melt the butter then add the flour. With a small spatula stir to combine into a paste and cook over a gentle heat until the colour darkens only slightly. Add a small stream of milk stirring the whole time to incorporate into the butter flour mix. When the milk has been absorbed, add more and continue until the sauce starts to thin and has reached the desired volume.

Allow to cook over a low heat for a couple of minutes then remove. Add the grated cheese and stir until the cheese has melted. Top of the gnocchi and sauce mix and bake in the oven for 15 minutes.