Skillet Gnocchi with Spinach
Shop-bought gnocchi, never boiled, fried straight from the packet until the outsides blister.
Boiling shop-bought gnocchi gives you something soft and slightly gluey. Frying them dry gives you a crisp shell and a pillowy middle, and it is faster because there is no pot of water to bring up.
They need room and they need to be left alone. Stirring constantly is how you get pale gnocchi.
Ingredients
| Amount | Ingredient |
|---|---|
| 1 lb | shelf-stable potato gnocchi |
| 2 tbsp | olive oil |
| 2 tbsp | butter |
| 3 | garlic cloves, sliced |
| 5 oz | spinach |
| — | chilli flakes |
| — | grated hard cheese and lemon zest, to finish |
Method
- Heat the oil in a wide pan over medium-high. Tip the gnocchi straight in from the packet, no boiling.
- Spread them in one layer and leave them three or four minutes without touching them. They will blister and colour underneath.
- Toss once, another two or three minutes, until most sides have some colour.
- Butter, garlic and chilli in. Thirty seconds, no more, or the garlic burns.
- Spinach in by the handful, tossing as it collapses. It takes under a minute.
- Off the heat. Cheese and lemon zest over the top.
Notes
- The shelf-stable vacuum-packed gnocchi is what this is for. Fresh chilled gnocchi is wetter and sticks.
- A wide pan. Crowded gnocchi steam and stay white.
- A spoon of the pasta-adjacent trick applies: a splash of water at the end pulls the cheese into a sauce.
Questions
They stuck to the pan.
The pan was not hot enough when they went in, or they were moved too early. Both are the same mistake.
Frozen gnocchi?
It works, straight from frozen, with a couple of extra minutes. Do not thaw first.