Gnocchi

Wash the potatoes (but don't peel), dry well, prick all over and place in the over to cook for about an hour, or until tender.

While still hot, slice potatoes in half and scoop out the soft insides into a bowl, if you have a 'potato ricer', use it to 'rice' your potatoes, otherwise push them through a wire sieve onto a work bench.

Add most of the flour (reserving 1/2 cup), nutmeg and sea salt and gently mix together with your fingers.

Make a well in the centre and add the eggs

Working gently, bring everything together into a dough. The key to keeping your gnocchi as pillow soft as possible is not to overwork the dough.

Once you have a soft dough that's dry enough to work with, use some of the remaining flour to dust a clean part of your work surface and divide the dough into four pieces

Roll one piece into a long sausage, about 3-4cm wide. Cut into small gnocchi pieces, about 2cm long. Press each 'gnocchi' against the inside of a fork and your thumb, lightly dust with flour and place on a try lined with baking paper, then repeat with remaining dough.

You can now either freeze the gnocchi (they can be cooked from frozen) or drop them straight into a big pot of salted boiling water and cook until they have all bubbled up to the surface of the water and then count to five before draining the water.

Tip gnocchi into one of the following sauces

Sage and butter: Melt the butter until almost browned, add the sage leaves and lemon zest and cook for another couple of minutes.. Poor over the gnocchi and grate over parmesan cheese to serve

Simple Tomato Sauce: Give the tomatoes and basil a quick blast in a blender. Heat the olive oil in a deep frying pan on medium-heat. Add the garlic and cook for just a minutes or until aromatic but not burnt! Poor in the tomatoes and basil mixture, season to taste, stir well and let simmer for 20 minutes