Baked white-bean gnocchi with meatballs, mozzarella and tomato

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180˚C. For the gnocchi, purée the beans using a stick blender or food processor until completely smooth. For the best results, pass the purée through a sieve, strainer or mouli. Put the purée, egg yolk and a good pinch of salt in a large bowl. Sift the flour in, bit by bit, and use one hand to lightly and gently bring it together into a dough. Don’t work it too hard otherwise it will become tough.
2. Dust a clean bench with a little more flour. Divide the dough into 4 balls. Hold your hands out, flat, on top of one portion of dough. Press it as though you were pushing a piece of paper away from you and then pulling it back towards you to roll the dough into a long rope as thick as a wine cork. Set it aside and repeat with the remaining 3 balls of dough.
3. Line the dough ropes up next to each other and simultaneously cut all 4 into gnocchi around 1.5 cm long. (Lining the ropes up next to each other will help create equal-sized gnocchi.) Place the gnocchi on the lined baking tray, drizzle lightly with olive oil and bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes. This helps the gnocchi to set so they don’t get too slimy when they are baked in the sauce later on.
4. Reduce the oven temperature to 150˚C. For the sauce, put the cherry tomatoes in the ovenproof dish, drizzle with the olive oil and sprinkle with a pinch of salt. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes, or until the tomatoes have softened and wrinkled.
5. While the tomatoes are roasting, make the meatballs. Combine the meat with the dried oregano, a pinch of salt, a good grinding of black pepper and 1 tablespoon of very cold water. Squash it all together with your hands, and then portion the mixture into meatballs the same size as the cherry tomatoes. When the tomatoes have been in the oven for 20 minutes, add the meatballs to the dish and pop the dish back in the oven for another 20 minutes.
6. When the tomatoes are roasted, bloated and softened from the oven, squash them with a fork to encourage the innards to ooze out and make a sauce. Add the tomato paste and sugar and stir gently. Nestle the gnocchi in amongst the meatballs and the tomatoes. You want to make sure that there is enough liquid from the busted tomatoes to come at least halfway up the sides of the gnocchi. If not, add another 1–2 tablespoons tomato paste muddled with a little water, or make up the shortfall with tomato passata.
7. Top with the well drained and torn mozzarella and bake for 30 minutes, or until the cheese has melted and browned and the gnocchi are cooked through.
8. Serve the baked gnocchi with basil or oregano on top.