We eat food from Pasta Resistance pretty regularly, and they make a dish called Gnocchi Matriciana, which is a lovely gnocchi in a creamy tomato and bacon sauce with a hint of chilli. We’ve had a few goes at replicating it at home (from packets) and tonight we came about as close as we’ll get I reckon! We also gave it our own special sundried tomato twist… yummy yummy….

The best bit is, it’s fairly cheap (cost us about $12 for 2 huge meals. With a larger packet of gnocchi it could serve 4 quite easily). It’s also dead easy to cook even for allergic-to-kitchen types, it only takes about 10 or 15 minutes to knock up, and all you need is 2 saucepans. So here goes…

Ingredients

1 x (500gm) packet of fresh gnocchi. This makes 2 BIG meals – Coles also sells 375gm and 650gm packets, so adjust this to suit
1 x tub of “Italian Tomato and Garlic” Latina pasta sauce
150gm diced bacon
A few tablespoons of sundried tomatoes
A few tablespoons of fresh cream
Chilli powder to taste

Method

Pretty simple really….

Putt a saucepan to the onto high heat – size not particularly important, so long as it’s more than big enough to fit all the gnocchi in.

Get another saucepan on the heat – brown the bacon for a couple of minutes, then put in the pasta sauce and stir well. Let it simmer for a few minutes, stirring occasionally. Cut up your sundried tomatoes a bit and add them to the mix too – keep simmering and stirring.

When the saucepan of water is boiling, chuck in your gnocchi and watch carefully – after a few minutes the gnocchi will start rising to the surface – once it’s all come to the top (by this stage the water should be boiling again), your gnocchi is cooked – take it off the heat.

Now add your cream (a few tablespoons is about right, just enough to make it a bit creamy) and chilli powder to taste, let it simmer for a minute or two to mix in. Then serve up your gnocchi, and pour sauce over the top. All done!

Serve with garlic bread – yummo! I’m still full… .wish I’d taken photos…. Cold vanilla ice cream and chocolate pudding also makes a great follow up!