How to make heart-warming gnocchi

​Change up your regular gnocchi-plus-sauce combination for one of these warming, baked gnocchi dishes. While generally associated with northern Italy, gnocchi can be found all over the Italian peninsula and made with a variety of ingredients, from bread to polenta to vegetables, formed into all shapes and sizes. Take these two gnocchi recipes, both from the bottom half of the boot: Rome's favourite gnocchi alla romana is made from semolina cooked with milk, then spread out, cooled and cut into rounds, then finished off in the oven with butter and cheese, while south of Naples, in Sorrento, they bake their potato gnocchi with tomato sauce and mozzarella.

Gnocchi alla romana

This Roman-style preparation is for simple, hearty gnocchi made from rounds of cooled, cooked semolina, baked with butter and parmesan cheese. It's a simple preparation that can be done well in advance and, needing only a browning in the oven before serving, is such an easy dish for when you have guests. Have these as a side dish or make them a bit more substantial by adding bechamel sauce to the top before sprinkling with cheese – served with a nice salad they can even be a meal in their own. This recipe is inspired by Pellegrino Artusi's 1891 cookbook, Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well. Far from outdated, this is still very much the same way you'll see gnocchi alla romana made today.

Serves 4 as a side dish

2 medium sized eggs
160g fine semolina flour
500ml milk
40g of asiago or gruyere (or any other good melting cheese), grated or diced
50g butter, diced
a handful of grated parmesan

In a bowl, beat the eggs with the flour and a pinch of salt until well combined. Slowly add the milk until you have a smooth mixture and then add the melting cheese. Place the mixture in a medium saucepan (1 litre capacity) and, over medium heat, stir constantly until you obtain a very thick mixture, like thick porridge or oatmeal, about five minutes. Turn this out on to a damp cookie tray (sprayed or sprinkled with some water) and, with wet hands (or a wet spatula), pat the mixture down to a thickness of about 1cm using the palm of your hand. Allow to cool completely.

Grease an ovenproof casserole pan with a third of the butter. With a 5cm round cookie cutter (or a glass) cut the gnocchi into rounds (it helps if you have a dish of water to dip the cutter into after each round) and place them in rows, slightly overlapping, in the ovenproof pan. Tuck a few cubes of butter between gnocchi and top with the rest of the butter and the parmesan. Bake at 200C for about 20 minutes until golden. Serve hot.

Gnocchi alla sorrentina

This crowd-pleasing dish comes from the coast of Sorrento, near Naples, where Sunday lunch might typically feature these potato gnocchi tossed with a bright tomato sauce and baked in the oven with some basil and fresh mozzarella. There are two key secrets to the perfect, fluffy potato gnocchi. The first is the right potatoes – go for floury or starchy potatoes, the kind that make great mash or chips, rather than waxy types. And the second is to cook the potatoes whole. Although this isn't a typical preparation for gnocchi (they would normally be boiled whole), roasting the potatoes whole, in their skins ensures that the potatoes do not absorb any liquid, thus avoiding the need to add too much flour. All this helps keep the potato mixture light and fluffy, resulting in pillowy rather than chewy gnocchi.

Serves 4

For the assembly:

2 tbsp olive oil
1 garlic clove, chopped finely
1 x 400g can peeled or chopped tomatoes
pinch of salt
10 basil leaves, torn into pieces
60g grated parmesan
200g fresh mozzarella

For the gnocchi:

1kg starchy potatoes, such as Dutch creams
1 medium/large sized egg, beaten
2 tsp salt
250g flour, plus extra for dusting

Prepare a tomato sauce by heating the olive oil gently with the garlic. Let the garlic soften but not colour. At the slightest hint of colouring, add the canned tomato, along with about 200ml of water, a pinch of salt and half the basil leaves. Bring to a simmer and cook, uncovered, for 20 minutes. Set aside until needed.

For the gnocchi, rinse the potatoes of any dirt but keep them whole with skins on. Place on a tray and roast until a fork easily pierces the potatoes, about 35 minutes for medium-sized potatoes (it helps if the potatoes are of a similar size). Peel the skins off the potatoes while still hot (try this with rubber gloves or by holding the potato with a fork with one hand and using the other hand to peel with a small, sharp knife) and immediately mash until perfectly smooth, spreading out the mashed potato on a tray or chopping board to allow the steam to escape quickly. Continue with the rest of the potatoes, then collect the cooled, smooth mashed potato into a wide bowl or clean surface.

Add the egg and one teaspoon of salt to the potato and begin to beat well to incorporate fully. Begin incorporating the flour and knead it to a smooth dough until it just comes together. Turn onto a floured surface and, taking fist-sized portions of dough, roll into a log about 1½ cm wide, then cut the log into 2cm long pieces. Dust liberally with flour and place the gnocchi pieces onto a sheet of baking paper. Continue with the rest of the gnocchi mixture.

Bring a large pot of water to boil. Add one teaspoon salt to the water and turn to a simmer. Tip the gnocchi into the pot (a tip: taking the baking paper by two opposite corners, simply place the entire sheet of paper – yes, paper and all – into the water and pull it out; your gnocchi will be successfully and safely in the water). Cook two to three minutes or until the gnocchi begin to float and feel springy. Drain the gnocchi immediately and add to the tomato sauce, tossing to coat, then pour the gnocchi into a baking dish.

Sprinkle the top of the gnocchi with the parmesan and dot the top with the mozzarella and the rest of the basil. Place in oven at 180C for 15-20 minutes or until the top is golden brown and bubbling. Serve immediately.

Emiko Davies is a food writer, photographer and blogger.