In the mood for a healthy lunch or dinner? Then Chef Thomas Marchi of Filini Bar and Restaurant at Radisson Blu Abu Dhabi has the meal for you. He says this potato gnocchi is “one of my top dishes, it reminds me of where I come from and is an excellent dish for a light summer lunch”.

Ingredients:

Gnocchi dough:

• Flour 50g
• One egg yolk
• Potato 70g
• Extra virgin oil 50g
• Grana Padano 20g
• Nutmeg & salt

Sauce:

• Chopped tomato 120g
• Extra virgin olive oil 40ml
• One garlic clove
• Basil 15g
• Salt & white pepper
• Chopped parsley 5g
• Grana Padano 100g

Method:

1. Peel and boil the potatoes, drain and rest for a few minutes. Mash, but don’t overdo it!
2. For the gnocchi, mix together all ingredients until it makes a soft dough.
3. Roll the dough into a long string shape (around 1 cm in diameter) using a little bit of flour if needed, then cut into small pieces around 2cm long.
4. Separately mix the chopped tomatoes with olive oil, basil, salt and chopped garlic.
5. Grate the Grana Padano and sprinkle into a hot non stick pan, melt and cook on both side until it becomes golden brown, cool until hard and break it in pieces.
6. Boil salted water and cook gnocchi until they rise to the top. Strain, then mix in the sauce. Mix well and serve with Grana Padano crispies on top.
   
   Serves one.

Check out our very own Tried and Tested review of this recipe below;

When we decided to make potato gnocchi, from a recipe provided by Chef Thomas Marchi of Filini Bar and Restaurant at Radisson Blu Abu Dhabi, we were excited. Not only did we have to skip out on the frustrations of trying to locate mysterious ingredients in the supermarket but also because we happen to be big fans of gnocchi.

We made the sauce first since we knew we'd add the hot gnocchi to it. Asides from a clumsy spill of olive oil, the sauce was pretty simple to replicate. Because we used fresh chopped tomatoes (that weren't as ripe or as flavourful as we'd hoped) we added a spoonful of tomato paste to the mixture for colour and flavour. You could also used canned tomatoes if you want a richer tomato taste.

The recipe itself is pretty straightforward and easy to follow. After boiling and mashing the potato, just add the required liquid/flour to form a soft paste. We were a bit heavy handed on the nutmeg so our gnocchi turned a soft shade of brown but we weren't deterred. The dough came together quite easily and had just enough olive oil to make rolling it out into a long cylinder mess free. Since we prefer larger bites of gnocchi, we cut the pieces into inch sized portions instead.

The gnocchi boils in around three to four minutes. You know it's done when they've floated to the top of the water. We immediately removed the hot gnocchi and placed it into a dish of the prepared sauce. The heat from the gnocchi helped warm everything through.

Since we didn't have grana padano cheese on hand we opted for shredded mozzarella. We missed out on the crunchy aspect of this dish however the gnocchi was soft, creamy and was complemented by the fresh tomato sauce. It does take a bit more time than other dishes however if your a fan of gnocchi then this is worth the effort.

We give it four out of five spoons!