Gnocchi with Blue Cheese Sauce

As soon as the temperatures start to rise the Mediterranean influence on my cooking begins to increase accordingly. I feel like olives, fresh herbs, capers and garlic, lemons and seafood, and all the fresh vegetables which finally start to grow. The tomatoes and cucumbers start to taste strong again and yesterday I bought my first bottle of rosé wine of the year, another sign of the official start of the new season!

From now on, I could just live of pasta, vegetables, simple dishes which sparkle through the ripe flavours of their ingredients, basically Italian cooking which refines minimal dishes to perfection and celebrates each single element of a dish. A great example are gnocchi. After I ate my own, homemade gnocchi for the first time I couldn't enjoy the store bought ones anymore. The dough is so easy to make, potato and nutmeg as the dominant flavours, flour, eggs, butter, salt and pepper mixed together and shaped into little gnocchi. Far less complicated than homemade pasta as long as one rule is obeyed, the potatoes must have cooled off before mixed with the flour. Apart from that it's an unbelievably easy dinner and so delicious that some sage leaves fried in olive oil and some grated parmesan would be enough to make me happy. If only there wasn't this amazing blue cheese sauce that I fell in love with a couple years ago. It's smooth but aromatic, cooked with garlic, onions, parsley, juniper berries, cloves and bay leaf which are taken out before the blue cheese is mixed in. I use Fourme d'Ambert cheese from the Auvergne region in France which is creamy but very strong in taste, the gnocchi just need to be glazed with the sauce, enough to enjoy all the intense aromas.

In January I made my wintery gnocchi with pumpkin and potatoes and a walnut pesto. Sometimes I mix spinach into my gnocchi dough which I have to make again, soon, as there is nice and crunchy spinach at the moment!

Gnocchi with a Fourme d'Ambert Blue Cheese Sauce

It's best to use floury potatoes with a fluffy and dry texture for the gnocchi dough. Keep in mind that you don't mix the flour with the cooked potatoes unless they are absolutely cold.

For 2-3 people you need

For the Blue Cheese Sauce

• small onion, chopped, 1

• garlic, cut in half, 1

• butter 30g / 1 ounce

• milk 125ml

• heavy cream 125ml

• white wine 150ml

• fresh parsley 3 sprigs

• cloves 2

• juniper berries 2

• bay leaf 1

• black peppercorns 4

• blue cheese such as Fourme d'Ambert 45g / 2 ounces

In a sauce pan, fry the onions and garlic in butter until golden and soft, add the other ingredients except the blue cheese and bring to the boil. Let it simmer for 10 minutes on medium heat, pour through a sieve and add the cheese. When the cheese has melted, let the sauce simmer for 5-8 minutes on low heat until it starts to thicken slightly. Season with salt and pepper. 

For the Gnocchi

• potatoes, cut into cubes, 450g / 16 ounces

• butter 30g / 1 ounce

• organic egg yolks 2

• plain flour 125g / 4.5 ounces

• nutmeg, grated

• salt 1 1/2 teaspoons

• black pepper

Cook the the potatoes in salted water until soft (around 15 minutes). Drain them when they are done. Press the drained potatoes through a potato ricer and mix immediately with the butter and egg yolks. Put in a cool place (in the fridge) until the mixture is completely cool.

In a large pot, bring plenty of salted water to the boil. Set the oven to 100°C / 210°F and put an ovenproof dish inside. You will need it to keep the gnocchi warm while you cook them in batches.

With a spoon (or your hands), mix the cold potato mixture with the flour, salt, nutmeg and pepper until combined. Dust your hands with flour and roll the dough – in batches – into sausage shapes on a well floured working surface and cut off 3x3cm / 1x1″gnocchi. If you like you can roll them on a fork for the typical gnocchi pattern. Put them onto a floured baking sheet.

Cook your gnocchi in batches in the boiling water so that they can float. After 3 minutes, when they start to come up and float on the surface take them out with a slotted ladle and drain them. Keep them in the warm dish in the oven until you are done with the last batch.

Arrange the gnocchi on plates and pour some of the blue cheese sauce over them.