Make an awesome pizza inspired gnocchi recipe for £1 per portion …. well, actually less than that as what we ended up with was a whole lot of gnocchi…. but hey, don’t gnocchi it until you try it! Using tinned potatoes was a genius approach too, already cooked and peeled, just warm up and mash away! Super stonkin’ hope you give this recipe a try 🙂
To make the gnocchi, bring a pan of water to a simmer and place in the tinned potatoes, warm them through for 5 minutes, remove from the heat to cool for a few minutes but keep the water. Once slightly cooler, season the potatoes generously with salt and pepper, add in the egg and some chopped basil leaf and mash it together until smooth. Slowly add in the flour in batches, you may need to add a little more as you go, keep adding it in until it is smooth but able to be shaped. Don’t do this when the mix is hot or you will cook the egg! Room temperature is ideal, knead onto a floured board using extra flour as needed until smooth.
Take small pieces of the gnocchi dough and roll into small balls, just small bite sized is fine, too big and they’ll take ages to cook and be too stodgy! With each ball lightly press into it with a fork to make lines along it. Repeat with the dough (you’ll make a lot from this mix!) and add them to the pan of water used to cook the potatoes earlier, just bring it back up to a low simmer and add in the gnocchi carefully, once it’s done each gnocchi piece will float to the top, let it bobble there for another minute or so to cook it through, especially if you’ve made any large ones. Lift with a slotted spoon onto a plate.
In a small oven proof dish mix the passata, chopped basil leaf plus a handful or ripped mozzarella together with a good handful of the gnocchi. Top with more mozzarella and a couple of pepperoni slices (or garnish to your liking) bake in the oven at 350f/180c/160fan or equivalent until the cheese is golden brown and the whole mixture is warmed and bubbling.
Before serving top with more mozzarella and basil. Play around with this recipe – for £1 per portion it’s actually way better value than that as you can probably feed 3-4 people with the amount of dough the tin made, so enjoy! Maybe but it in a cream sauce or drizzle on some basil infused oil etc… good luck!