Gnocchi with peas and chorizo

The sweetness of the peas is really complemented by the complex smoky, garlicy flavours of the chorizo in this dish. What's more is its cheap!


I can buy gnocchi from my local Tesco metro for 65p. This is excellent value, especially when you consider that gnocchi is not only incredibly filling and versatile for many different sauces, but also one 65p pack=two meals.
 For some reason Tesco's own brand gnocchi is much more expensive, so if you're buying from Tesco look out for Trattoria Verdi Gnocchi:

   Gnocchi is one of my favourite dishes to cook when I get back from uni starving-hungry. This is because, as I said before, they are cheap and filling, but also they cook in literally only a minute or two. In fact, this whole recipe combined potentially only takes 15 minutes- I know this because once I had a total of only 40 minutes to get changed, cook and eat my dinner before I had to rush back to uni. The cooking and eating part only took 25 minutes in total. This includes kettle boiling time and faffing about with kitchen equipment. It's the fastest I've ever made and eaten a good dinner before.

Gnocchi are actually a kind of Italian potato dumpling- I'm desperate to get my hands on a potato ricer so i can make my own. They're so simple to make, and apparently (as you would imagine) taste much better than shop bought. So hopefully some time in the near future you will be reading about a 'Made from scratch' gnocchi recipe. :)

The only herb I use in this recipe is oregano- the 'pizza herb' is what came to my mind when I smelt it on its own for the first time. The oregano I use is particularly fragrant. This is because I was lucky enough to receive masses of fresh dried herbs that my mum brought back for me from her latest holiday to Crete.  The aroma you get from herbs grown and dried in hot Mediterranean countries are far superior to the faint whiffs you get from supermarket herbs in a pot. The difference something like a herb grown in the heat of the Mediterranean can do to your cooking is divine. The night my mum gave me my new herbs, I sat in the kitchen removing the leaves and flowers of each herb from their stalks- I took hours over it, purely because of how beautiful the scents were that were coming from these plants. It made the whole kitchen smell so delicious.

So anyway, for this recipe, oregano is your star herb:

Ingredients:

• 1/2  pack of Trattoria Verdi Gnocchi
• A bowl full of peas
• Oregano
• One garlic clove
• One tsp sugar
• Salt and pepper
• lemon juice
• Chorizo
• Knob of butter

Method:

• Start with the kettle: fill it as high as you can and wait for it to boil.
• Get a medium sized pan and add the knob of butter. Crush the garlic and add that too. Turn the heat to medium.
•  Put your peas in a colander. When the kettle's boiled, pour enough of the hot water over the peas to just defrost them.
• Use the remaining hot water to fill another pan with hot water to boil (this will be for your gnocchi).
• If the butter in the pan has started to bubble, you can add your peas. 
• You will need either a food processor or a liquidizer for this next step. Liquidize your pea mixture- this doesn't need to be too thorough, the occasional whole pea will add a nice pop of texture to the dish.
• Add a bit of warm water to this mixture to loosen it a little.
• Back on the heat, add the sugar and a generous amount of oregano.
• Add the lemon juice, salt, and pepper to taste. Be careful with your seasoning, too much pepper can overpower the sweetness of the peas, as can too much salt. The lemon lifts the flavour of the dish, but taste as you go to keep the flavours in balance.
• Let this simmer for a few minutes to allow the flavours to mingle.
• Add your gnocchi to the now boiling water in your second pan. The gnocchi is ready when it floats to the surface of the water (this can take as little as a minute).
• When the gnocchi is done, drain it in a colander and then transfer the gnocci to your pan with peas (off the heat. Mix it all up.
• In a separate pan (or the one you just cooked the gnocchi in) add the chorizo (you wont need any oil). Cook it over a medium heat for a minute until it looks kind of crumpled and crispier.
• Transfer everything to a plate, and you're done! 

This dish can easily be made vegetarian by cutting out the chorizo and substituting it for greated cheese of your choice (e.g. cheddar, Parmesan). In fact, this is originally how I started making this dish, and its just as good.