Quantity is enough for 2 as a main, 4 as a starter. Double or triple if you are hungry or feeding the horde.
– A 1/2 cup of cooked, strained spinach. Frozen spinach is fine. This equaled about 200g frozen spinach for me, thawed in the microwave then pressed to get as much water out as possible.
– 175g fresh ricotta, drained
– 1 egg, lightly whisked
– 40g grated Parmesan
– pinch of nutmeg
– 1/3 cup flour
– salt and pepper to taste
Burnt Butter & Tomato sauce
– Good slurp of olive oil
– Nice dollup of butter. Don’t be stingy. If you need amounts a tablespoon, maybe more. Probably more.
– Clove of garlic, finely chopped
– Ripe tomato, diced. (if you wanted to be fancy you could skin it and discard the seeds)
– handful of basil leaves, optional
– extra parmesan to serve
Heat the oven to a low temp.
Sieve the flour into a bowl. Stir in the egg, then the ricotta till well mixed. Add the Parmesan, spinach and nutmeg, and then season to taste. Cover the bowl and put in the fridge for 20 min.
Flour up your hands and a flat surface, and take dessertspoon size balls from the ricotta mix. Make balls or bullets with the mix and place on a tray.
Heat a large pan of water and drop the gnocchi balls in and cook for 3-4 min. They will rise to the surface when done. Keep warm in the oven.
Heat the remaining oil and butter in a frypan over a medium heat and fry the basil leaves, if using. Set aside on a paper towel to drain
Lower the heat, Add the garlic to the pan, cook for a minute or till starting to colour. Then add the tomato to the pan and cook for a minute more.
Serve the ricotta gnocchi with the burnt butter tomato sauce, topped with the fried basil and extra Parmesan.