In the past I’ve not really been convinced by gnocchi. They always seemed kind of dense and tasteless, and I’ve always thought I’d just prefer to have pasta instead.

Turns out, everyone who’d ever cooked them for me had just been rubbish. Not trying to claim I cook better than a restaurant (except in this case I totally am), but when I finally got around to making them myself, I discovered that gnocchi are the best thing ever.

It’s true that if you just prepare your gnocchi and boil them, like is often done, they’re kind of meh. Dense and stodgy, and there’s not really much to them. However, if you sauté them after boiling, they transform into little crispy, buttery nuggets that are just incredible. Somehow they become light and fluffy, totally different to the dense dumplings they were five minutes earlier.

Look at the difference! Just boiled:

Nothing special. But after a few minutes in a pan:

Sooo much better!

I’ll admit, making gnocchi is a little labour intensive, so I kept the sauce simple – in fact it’s barely a sauce at all, just some garlic butter, pine nuts, and parmesan cheese. Perfect Italian flavours for your little Italian gnocchi.

I’ll definitely be making gnocchi again next time I have a quiet Sunday ahead of me, and I feel like getting stuck into something in the kitchen. A word of caution: it’s best if you have a potato ricer – well, either that, or twenty minutes to spend mashing your potatoes and arms of steel. I got a bit lazy and a couple of my gnocchi ended up with little lumps of potato in, which kind of ruins the illusion of these fluffy dumplings.