Renato Favaro, chef at Italian restaurant Como in Esch-sur-Alzette, knew instantly what he wanted to talk about. “It’s one of my mother’s recipes.” The ‘Ratte potato gnocchi in tomato, basil and parmesan sauce’ recipe he shares with us is the dish that always transports him right back to his childhood. “The tradition back then in that part of Italy, near Lake Como, was to eat gnocchi on Thursdays. I can still vividly see us all — my parents, my two sisters and I — sitting around the big table, with its big tablecloth. It was a real family affair: peeling the potatoes, cooking them, Dad mashing them, Mum making the dough… Mum was always getting annoyed with us for eating them before they were ready,“ smiles the chef nostalgically. “I regularly put them on the menu, sometimes with a bit of a twist,” he says, before concluding with this heartfelt truth: “Cooking is love.”
Ingredients
- For the tomato sauce
- 3 kg San Marzano tomatoes (or another variety)
- 1 bouquet garni
- Fleur de sel de Guérande
- A pinch of sugar
- 100 ml olive oil
- 1 bunch of basil
- For the gnocchi
- 500 g ratte potatoes
- 1 egg yolk
- 100 g flour
- 20 ml extra virgin olive oil
- 1 knob of butter
- Guérande sea salt
- Parsley
- 200 g Parmesan cheese
- A pinch of nutmeg
Instructions
The sauce
- Sauté the bouquet garni in a pan.
- Add the washed, hulled and roughly chopped tomatoes.
- Add the salt, sugar and basil. Cover and cook over a low heat for 1 hour.
- Remove the lid. Cook for another hour, skimming from time to time.
- Purée the mixture and leave to stand in a sieve until two-thirds of the water has been released.
- Season to taste.
The gnocchi
- Steam the potatoes for 20 minutes, then peel and mash them.
- Mix the hot mash with the other ingredients to form a smooth dough.
- Roll the dough into a cylinder 1 cm in diameter and cut into 1 cm pieces.
- Cook in boiling salted water until the dough pieces rise to the surface, remove with a skimmer and drain.
- Mix the gnocchi with the tomato coulis, add a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, and sprinkle with Parmigiano Reggiano aged over 30 months.
To serve
- Arrange the gnocchi in a deep plate.
- Garnish with some fresh basil.
Recipe: Renato Favaro
