“A big focus for me is not to waste anything,” says Karena Armstrong, co-owner of McLaren Vale’s Salopian Inn. “I have this whole repertoire of recipes that are based around using up old bread. It’s an ethos of Salopian and me personally; we just don’t disregard what someone’s made or grown or produced. We try and use everything.”
Armstrong’s recipe is a lifesaver for using up bread ends and crusts cut off for fussy kids (and adults). The lesson here is not to throw those bits away, but to keep them for a greater purpose. “You can get great silicon Ziploc bags now, you pop them in the freezer and before you know it you’ve actually got a meal that you’ve made of leftover little bits here and there,” says Armstrong.
Whether you use the crusts or not (and Armstrong suggests they’re ideal for texture, so don’t skimp), you’ll want to start with whatever bread you have handy, breaking it up by hand. Armstrong then combines pre-steamed and roughly chopped spinach, raw onion (again for texture), milk, eggs, semolina and pecorino. As ever, if you’re sitting on greens like silverbeet or cavolo nero, feel free to sub in instead of the spinach.
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The end result is something between gnocchi and an Eastern European-style bread dumpling, designed to suck up whatever sauce it sits in. In this case, Armstrong is going for a classic red sauce of sauteed onion, garlic, hard herbs (such as thyme and oregano) and tomatoes. The sauce is going to look a little loose at first, but that’s by design. “All those flavours go into the gnocchi so it’s really important that it stays wet,” says Armstrong. “When people make the sauce they’ll look at it and go ‘oh it’s too wet, it’s too oily’ but once you drop the dumplings in it sucks it all up.”
To serve, Armstrong recommends plating it up family style. “This is definitely a dish for sharing with people and having in the middle of the table and salad with it,” Armstrong says. “It gets crushed, there’s never leftovers at all.”
Recipe: Bread and spinach gnocchi
Serves: 6
Preparation time: 30 Minutes
Cooking time: 25 Minutes
Ingredients:
Bread gnocchi
400g Abbott’s Rustic White bread, torn into small pieces
150g baby spinach
80ml milk
1 brown onion, finely diced
2 eggs
50g semolina (plus extra semolina for rolling)
100g pecorino, finely grated
Tomato sauce
100ml extra virgin olive oil
1 red onion, finely diced
5 garlic cloves, finely sliced
2 bay leaves
3 tbsp thyme or oregano, chopped
4 ripe tomatoes, diced
400g tinned organic tomatoes
400ml vegetable or chicken stock
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
Sea salt and pepper to taste
To prepare and serve
100ml olive oil
50g butter
100g fresh mozzarella
100g pecorino
1 bunch basil
Method:
Place the bread into a mixing bowl.
Steam the spinach until it’s just wilting (either in a steamer or the microwave). Place in the bowl with the bread. Add in milk, onion, eggs, semolina and pecorino. Mix well with hands or in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment. It should be sticky and well combined. Leave the gnocchi mix covered on the bench for at least 1 hour. It will firm up as it sits.
While the gnocchi mix is resting, make the tomato sauce by heating the olive oil in a wide-based sauté pan. Add the red onion and garlic and cook for 10 minutes on a moderate heat. Add the herbs and bay leaves with the diced ripe tomatoes. Add the tinned tomatoes and stock and bring to a gentle simmer. Season with the sea salt, sugar and vinegar and gently cook until the sauce is thick.
While the sauce is simmering, shape the dumplings. Wet your hands and then roll the dumplings on a plate that’s been dusted with semolina. Roll 24 gnocchi of equal size and set onto a tray.
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Heat a frying pan and add half of the oil and butter. Fry the gnocchi in batches, each for a few minutes until golden brown on each side. Season with sea salt. Drain on absorbent paper and then transfer the gnocchi and the tomato sauce to a baking dish. Top the gnocchi with extra mozzarella and pecorino and cook for 6-8 minutes in the hot oven or until the cheese is molten.
Remove from the oven and top with fresh herbs. Serve with a bowl of fresh salad greens dressed with olive oil and lemon juice.
This article is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with Abbott’s Bakery.
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