Gnocchi with Tomato Sugo

Method

1. To prepare the gnocchi, preheat oven to 180°C.
2. Place rock salt on a tray and place potatoes on the salt and bake until soft. This may take up to 50 minutes or an hour. Slice the potatoes in half, and once cool enough to handle use a spoon to scoop out the inside of the potatoes.
3. Use a potato ricer and push all of the potatoes through. Place your riced potatoes on a work bench dusted with flour, add salt and egg yolk. Add half the flour and start mixing with a fork until it starts to combine.
4. Slowly start adding the rest of the flour as needed until you have a smooth dough. Knead as briefly as you can to create your dough being careful not to over-work the dough which results in golf balls.
5. Break off a chunk of dough and with your fingers roll the dough into a tube. Depending on how thick your tube is will determine how large your gnocchi turn out. Don’t make it too big.
6. For the sauce, place 100ml olive oil in a sauté pan, add garlic cloves and cook gently until they start to colour. Remove and discard (keep the garlic for something else).
7. Add the tomatoes and cook for about 10 minutes until they start to break down. After 5 minutes add the passata and continue cooking.
8. Cook gnocchi in a pot of salted boiling water. As they begin to float to the top, remove with a slotted spoon and add to the tomatoes.
9. At this point, add 100ml of the pasta water and cook the sauce down. Once reduced and coating the gnocchi, remove off the heat, add the basil, seasoning and Parmigiano. Add the remaining olive oil and mix very well. This will create a creaminess to the sauce.
10. Plate up the gnocchi and drizzle more olive oil on top.