This gnocchi dish with chorizo, peppers and mozzarella is such a great comfort food. Gnocchi is surprisingly easy to make yourself from scratch, particularly if you happen to have leftover mashed potatoes to use up, but to be honest, for this particular dish I usually buy a pack from the supermarket. That little timesaver makes this a nice mid-week meal, it takes probably just over half an hour to make this dish which isn’t bad given it’s pretty much a meal on it’s own. However, you could also serve it with veg or a salad to lighten it up a bit and make the meal feel less stodgy.

This is an adaptation of a gnocchi recipe I found on the BBC GoodFood website, I’ve played around with the herbs, substituting basil for parsley (I find whenever I buy basil, it wilts and goes to waste, whereas parsley lasts much longer in comparison, hence I tend to have it in the fridge).  I also added some extra veg and cheese and played around with the quantities to perfect my version.

Time: 35 minutes

Serves 3

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp olive oil

• 1 onion, peeled and chopped

• 2 garlic cloves, crushed

• 120g chorizo, diced, about 1cm cubed

• 1 bell pepper, diced, (I used green but any colour is fine)

• 1 x 400g can chopped tomatoes  

• 1 tsp sugar

• 400g gnocchi

• 150g mozzarella ball torn in to pieces

• Approx. 40g cheddar cheese, grated

• Handful parsley, chopped

Method

1. Heat the oil in a medium sized pan and fry the chopped onions and garlic until softened.

2. Add the diced chorizo and bell pepper, and fry for another 5 minutes.

3. Add the chopped tomatoes and sugar and mix well, bringing to a simmer.

4. Add the gnocchi and let it bubble away for about 10 minutes until soft.

5. Turn the grill on to high heat.

6. Stir about ½ of the mozzarella and most of the parsley in to the pan and season to taste.

7. Pour everything in to a baking dish and top with the rest of the mozzarella and the grated cheese.

8. Grill for about 5 minutes until the cheese is bubbling and there is some nice colour on top.

9. Scatter the remaining parsley on top and then serve, perhaps with some steamed veg or a salad or just on its own.