METHOD

Combine the ricotta, eggs and parmesan in a large bowl, along with some salt and pepper. Add the flour and chopped spinach. The mixture should be a very sticky dough - add more flour if necessary to achieve this. The idea is that you add just enough flour to hold the mixture togeher but not enough to make it heavy. If I haven't made these for a while I often stop here, scoop a tablespoon or so, dust with flour and cook in salted boiling water to see how it goes. If it doesn't hold it's shape or breaks apart, add a little more flour to the mixture and repeat if necessary. Now you can either divide the mixuture into quarters, lightly flour your bench and, taking one quarter at a time, roll out the mxiture into sausage shapes about 2cm in diamataer. Then cut each sausage into 2cm lengths to form your individual gnocchi. Or, you can take tablespoonsful of the mixture, roll into balls and dust with flour.

Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil and drop the gnocchi, in batches so as not to overload the pot, into the water. They are ready when they float to the surface.

When the gnocchi rise to the surface, remove with a slotted spoon and keep warm. When all the gnocchi are done you can either toss with browned butter and parmesan or with your favourite tomato sauce.