What to do with gnocchi

[maduggar]

Picked up a pack of ready made gnocchi in Tesco today.

Now I need to work out what to with it!

Any ideas? Did I read somewhere that you can oven-roast it?

I normally cook it in the regular way, and have it with a tomato based pasta sauce (with cheese).

If you are a fan of blue cheese and not worried about the calories serve it mixed with cooked broccoli and a sauce of cream and blue cheese. Dolcelatte (sp?) is v nice. But other than that, like the previous ladies said, you'd use it like you would pasta and serve with whatever kind of sauce you'd like.

As a combo of two ideas here, we boil it then stir in a nice tomato sauce. Then put in an ovenproof dish and sprinkle over some blue cheese and whack under the grill until bubbling.

Creamy cheesy sauce with spinach is really good too.

If you like it, it's actually surprisingly easy to make and tastes delicious and freezes well. My DH gave it a go a few weeks ago and it is essentially just mashed potato and flour, and DS (2.6) loved cutting it into small pieces.

Traditionally it would be pesto, but any sauce you'd normally have with pasta is good. I like it with meatballs and tomato sauce, then grated cheese over the top under the grill for a minute or two.

Gorgonzola sauce - mash down some gorgonzola in some double cream over a gentle heat while cooking the gnocchi in salted boiling water.

Or parmesan sauce - same thing but with grated parmesan.

Lightly boil Serve with sage butter (fry the sage in butter first,or it tastes too sagey).

Tres sophisicated...

I have some red pesto, might try that with soem creme fraiche!

If it tastes as good as I hope, I will buy it again & try out some of these other ideas, thank you.

You can roast - it's in Nigella's new book, this isn't the specific 'recipe' but it's mentioned here.

I did them in the oven rather than frying them - just tossed in a little olive oil then they took about 12 mins I think. Quite nice as a change.

Otherwise I often make a basic tomato sauce, add a spoon of creme fraiche at the end then stir in good tinned tuna and some capers.

Mix this in with cooked gnocchi (cook them a little less than normal) then into an oven dish, parmesan over the top and cook for 15-20 mins until golden on top. Freezes well (don't oven-cook before freezing though). Use more sauce than you would if you were going to eat straight away as the gnocchi soak it up and it can be too stodgy otherwise.

PS meant to make clear re: roasting that you don't need to cook first, just straight from the pack.

We have gnocchi as a side. Love this Nigella recipe:

Mustard pork chops
Nigella Lawson
Ingredients
2 pork chops, about 1 lb. total weight
2 teaspoons garlic oil
1/2 cup hard cider
1 tablespoon whole-grain mustard
⅓ cup heavy cream
1 pack of store bought gnocchi

Preparation
Cut the fat off the chops, and then bash them briefly but brutally with a rolling pin between two pieces of plastic wrap to make them thinner.

Heat the oil in a pan, and then cook the chops over a moderately high heat for about 5 minutes per side. Remove them to a warmed plate.

Pour the cider into the pan, still over the heat, to deglaze the pan. Let it bubble away for a minute or so, then add the mustard and stir the cream.

Let the sauce continue cooking for a few minutes before pouring over each plated pork chop. If you?re having gnocchi with, make sure you turn them in the pan to absorb any spare juices before adding them to your plates.

It should read as 1/3 cup heavy cream

I make a rich tomato sauce with bacon and loads of veggies - peppers, onions, mushrooms, courgettes and pour over pre-cooked gnocchi which I then grill with cheese on top.

Now I want it for tea but we are having baked potatoes tonight.

It is very easy to make yourself - boil peeled spuds, mash with butter then beat in pain flour until it is quite dry. Form into little balls in your palms (I make mine bigger than in the packet you can buy). Much tastier!

MIL makes a sort of shepherd's pie with gnocchi and cheese instead of mashed potato. It's really nice.

if you make your own and are pushed for time/arsedness instead of rolling in to balls roll out long sausages and cut into inch lengths. Whatever method you choose do this just as you are about to drop them in the water. Imo if you try to do this bit in advance you spend ages scraping it back up and re shaping it. Argh.

Chop up an onion and garlic, slosh in some white wine, reduce for a few mins, add creme fraiche or double cream, bit of gorgonzola if you like, pine nuts. Have with broccoli. I've just made myself hungry again!