Gnocchi al pomodoro

Before you start

• a potato ricer helps a great deal; a masher and patience will do
• about 1h15

Ingredients

Serves 2 · dimmer marks are storecupboard

• 500gpotatoes — floury — Maris Piper or King Edward. Waxy ones need far more flour and give heavy gnocchi
• 120gplain flour — have it all out, but expect to use less than you think
• 1eggs
• 1 tintinned tomatoes
• 1 tbspolive oil
• 2garlic cloves
• 20gparmesan
• 1 handfulbasil

Method

7 steps

1. boil · 32m walk away

   Potatoes boiled WHOLE in their skins until a knife slides through without resistance. Cut up first they drink the water, and every drop of it has to be paid for later in extra flour.

2. simmer · 18m

   Meanwhile the sauce: garlic softened in the oil, tomatoes crushed in and cooked down until thick and sweet.

3. chop · 8m

   Potatoes peeled while they are still almost too hot to hold and pushed through a ricer onto the board in a loose drift. Left to steam off for a couple of minutes.

4. fold · 5m

   Beaten egg and most of the flour over the top, and the whole thing brought together with a light hand and stopped the instant it holds. THIS is the step that ruins gnocchi: kneaded like bread, the potato starch turns to glue and they come out like erasers. It should feel barely mixed.

5. chop · 12m

   Rolled into ropes about as thick as a thumb, cut into pieces, and each one rolled down the back of a fork if you want the ridges. Floured lightly and kept apart on the board.

6. boil · 6m

   Into gently boiling salted water in two batches, and lifted out about twenty seconds after they bob up.

7. finish · 2m

   Straight into the warm sauce and turned through it, basil torn over, parmesan.