Spinach Gnocchi

With courgette and tomatoes

Italian cuisine is great at crafting simple plates of food that just hit the spot. Vibrant ingredients at their best fused into something both comforting and satisfying, often with very limited time to cook. 

Gnocchi is one of those such dishes. A term that covers anything resembling a dumpling made from a simple flour dough bound with egg, then shaped in the most effortless and straightforward way. 

In this case potato and spinach enrich the dough, and the first of the year’s courgettes and cherry tomatoes flash through the pan as a sauce. 

Serves 4
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 5 minutes
Ingredients:
600g +/- potatoes (about 2 large ones)
500g spinach
150g plain flour or 00 flour
2 egg yolks
Grated nutmeg
Fresh ground black pepper
1 tsp sea salt flakes
Rapeseed oil
1 large courgette
A generous handful of cherry tomatoes
Lots of fresh marjoram, picked

1. Begin by bringing a large pan of water to the boil. Peet and dice the potatoes and cook until tender.

2. Meanwhile heat a large frying pan and wash the spinach. Give it a good shake and cook in the searingly hot frying pan with a little water still clinging to the leaves. Once cooked cool in a colander. 

3. Once cool enough to handle, chop the spinach and squeeze as much water out of it as possible, before adding to a large mixing bowl.

4. Drain and steam the potatoes, then mash and add to the spinach.

5. While it is cooling cut the courgette into quarters lengthways, remove any spongy seedy core and dice. Half the cherry tomatoes and set to one side with the courgette.

6. Bring a large pan of water to the boil.

7. The potato should have cooled a little by now, so mix in the egg, seasoning and flour, then bring together to form a dough.

8. Divide this dough into four and roll each piece into a rope about as thick as your thumb. Then cut each length into 2cm pieces (ish).

9. Cook the gnocchi in the boiling water for a few minutes, they will bob to the surface when they are cooked. While they are cooking heat the large frying pan with a generous drizzle of oil. 

10. Once the gnocchi bob to the surface, add them to the frying pan (careful they will spit) with the courgette and tomato. Toss together, with the marjoram, over maximum heat for a couple of minutes, season with salt and pepper then serve and enjoy.

Serve with your favourite cheese grated or crumbled over the top.

Chef Notes:
1. The dough can be made in advance and rested in the fridge for an hour or so.
2. Try using chard leaves instead of spinach and use the stalks in the sauce. 

Robin Popham
Chef at ‘Create Terroir’ and Sandy Lane Farm veg box customer