Garlicky gnocchi with creamy spinach sauce

When you have a packet of gnocchi in your fridge for a while, you tend to start dreaming about what you could do with it. My flatmate and I have been discussing the various options over the past few days, and today we finally decided that we would mix it up with some spinach, mushrooms and pine nuts. ‘Oh, and lots of garlic.’ ‘And maybe we could use up that bit of white wine?’ ‘And don’t forget the garlic.’

This dish is very easy to make, takes almost no time as gnocchi is a quick fix, and it is a lot tastier than we initially expected. I mean, we thought it would be nice, but we didn’t realise it would be THIS GOOD. The crispness of the pre-fried gnocchi in the cream sauce is a wonderful contrast, and we ended up almost drinking the sauce! It would have been nice to have some bread on the side to soak it up, but oh well. Next time!

Serves 2

• 2 x 10g of butter
• 350g gnocchi (home made or from a packet)
• 1 tsp garlic salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp salt
• 3-4 tbsp pine nuts
• 5 cloves garlic, crushed
• 7-8 white or chestnut mushrooms, finely sliced
• 100g baby spinach
• 50ml white wine
• 150ml vegetable or chicken stock
• 150 ml cream

First, boil a pot of water and pour in the gnocchi. Leave it for about 1 minute, or until the gnocchi starts floating to the top. Drain.

In a deep pan, melt the first 10g of butter and fry the gnocchi on high heat with the garlic salt, pepper, paprika and salt. Let it fry for about 5 minutes until it’s a little crispy on the outside. Put into a separate bowl and keep aside.

In the same pan, melt the second 10g of butter and add the pine nuts, stirring until they turn a beautiful brown as you see below. Then add the garlic and fry for another couple of minutes. It should turn the same colour as the pine nuts.

Tip the mushrooms into the pan and fry for 3-4 minutes before adding the spinach. Stir until the spinach is fully wilted.

Pour in the white wine, stir for a couple of minutes and then add the stock and cream. Stir to combine and put in the crispy gnocchi, adding a bit more black pepper and paprika to taste.

Serve hot, ideally with some bread on the side to soak up all the delicious sauce!