Chef Fabio Daniel spent his days indulging in cheesy gnocchi. Here’s the recipe for his parmesan gnocchi:

Chef Fabio Daniel’s potato gnocchi. Image shot by Shavan Rahim

Ingredients

• 1 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 onion
• 1 clove of garlic
• handful chopped of thyme
• ½ cup of red wine
• 500 ml tomatoes
• 60g potato flour plus extra for dusting work surface when rolling
• 1 egg and 1 additional egg yolk
• 80g grated parmesan plus extra for garnish
• Salt
• 150g potatoes
• 12 asparagus Spears
• pinch of Salt
• balsamic vinegar, to taste
• black kalamata olives, for serving

Method

Preheat oven to 180°C. Place the Olive oil, Onion, Garlic and Thyme in a pot and simmer for about a minute until soft.

Add the wine and reduce for about three minutes.

Add the tomatoes and simmer for one hour. Add some salt to taste. While the sauce is simmering, bake potatoes skin-on in the oven for 1 hour until soft.

Blanch the asparagus in salted water for 1½ minutes and plunge in ice bath. Take four of the asparagus and shave with a peeler. Place the shaved asparagus in a cold pickle (100G Sugar, 100ml Water, 70ml Vinegar) in the fridge till ready to serve.

Peel the potatoes and mash quickly. Be careful not to mash too long as the potatoes can become stringy or gloopy.

Add in the rest of the ingredients and mix with a wooden spoon until it is just combined to avoid the gnocchi becoming too heavy.

Dust work surface with potato flower and divide into thirds. Roll the thirds into long snakes and cut into 1,5 cm pieces.

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil and drop in the gnocchi and cook for three to five minutes or until gnocchi rises to the top. Scoop gnocchi out with a slotted spoon and place in a bowl with a light coating of olive oil.

Heat a pan to medium heat with olive oil and shallow pan fry the gnocchi until it gets some colour and flip. Brown the second side.

Finish with the tomato sauce with balsamic vinegar and mix in a food processor until smooth.

Serve the gnocchi with two asparagus spears per plate and the tomato sauce. Finish with some parmesan, asparagus spears and olives to taste.