
Crispy Gnocchi with Burst Cherry Tomatoes
This is gnocchi treated like a potato rather than a dumpling: fried straight from the package, no boiling and no draining, until the outsides form a thin golden crust and the centers stay soft and chewy. The tomatoes go in whole and give way slowly — skins wrinkle, then split, and the juice hits the hot pan and lifts the browned bits off the bottom into a loose, sweet-sharp sauce that coats without any cream or stock. Go with shelf-stable gnocchi here — the vacuum-packed kind is drier than refrigerated or frozen, and dry surfaces brown instead of steaming into gum. For the same reason, salt goes in with the tomatoes and not before: salt on raw gnocchi pulls moisture to the surface exactly where you need it dry. The parmesan goes in off the heat, where it melts into strands instead of tightening into rubbery lumps in a boiling pan. Practically, eat this out of the skillet. The crust starts softening within about ten minutes on a plate, and reheating won't bring it back. Bread for the pan juices is the only side it needs; the spinach is the vegetable.







