Midsummer House, Cambridge

Midsummer House occupies a quiet spot overlooking the River Cam, a world away from the bustle and noise of central Cambridge.

It's hard to imagine a place like this exists, merely fifteen minutes walk from the town centre. A small rather unassuming cottage on the edge of Midsummer Common, the restaurant's exterior gives very little indication of the culinary powerhouse that lies inside.

Yet it's no secret to most Cambridge residents that Midsummer House is unquestionably the most highly reputed restaurant in the area. Headed up by chef Daniel Clifford, the restaurant proudly declares its status as "the only 2 Star Michelin restaurant in East Anglia".

It is a quiet Wednesday evening when I set out for Midsummer Common for a 7pm appointment. My excitement and anticipation are somewhat dampened by the time I finally arrive fifteen minutes late, thanks in no small part to my usual navigation aid which has conveniently lied about the restaurant's location. Nonetheless, I am swiftly seated, greeted and offered the menu.

Most of us decide to go a la carte (£76 for three courses) whilst Miss N next to me goes for the four-course set menu (£39.50).

Nibbles on the table... Left: Green olives ; Right: Gougères (choux pastry with cheese filling)

Several minutes of introductions and pleasant small talk pass before we realise the first of several amuse-bouches has already arrived and is melting as we speak. The sorbet is an unusual combination of sweet and savoury - slightly unremarkable on the whole, perhaps since it is unfortunately almost soup by the time we notice it.

Mystery sorbet... perhaps watermelon combined with some other green savoury stuff. Oh dear.

This is where I have to admit guilt for being an irresponsible food blogger, as for the most part, I didn't manage to keep track of what exactly it was we were eating... In my defence, the waitress serving us had such a thick French accent that none of us could really decipher more than about a fifth of what she was saying, although I do regret not asking her to repeat.

Next to arrive is an apple and raspberry foam, which is pumped out into amusing round-bottomed plastic coloured cups. The foam is incredibly light whilst managing to carry through reasonably strong flavour of fruity tartness balanced with sweetness, combined with a touch of something alcoholic. Definitely an interesting texture and an effective palate cleanser.

The final appetiser is a cauliflower velouté with cep and some kind of jelly. Once again, the soup is deceptively light in texture, yet with a wonderfully rich creamy flavour, covering over small cubes of both mushroom and a savoury jelly which I can't quite pin down. Not the most remarkable looking dish, but seriously amazing in both taste and texture.

My entree is seared hand dived scallops, celeriac, truffle, granny smith and caramel. I'm a sucker for good seafood, and the scallops are wonderfully large and plump, seared to a golden brown on the outside whilst remaining juicy and tender inside. The slivers of apple add a nice crunchy texture, although the truffle topping has surprisingly little impact. I am amused by the display of apple jelly cubes which provide a few sweet bursts of flavour. However, it is the creamy celeriac puree with truffle and the spot of sticky sweet thick caramel that make the dish my favourite of the night.

Arriving for main course is the slow roast loin of venison, braised choucroute, carrot puree, venison pudding, jus de cuisson. The meat is incredibly juicy and tender with a beautiful shade of pink throughout. I wonder if this has been done sous vide, although the description does say "slow roast". The carrot puree matches well whilst the choucroute (hidden under the slices of venison) isn't much to write home about. If there is only one minor negative for the evening, it is the venison pudding. Consisting of thin pastry encasing what is essentially a venison pie filling, I find the pudding a little heavy, not harmonising so well with the rest of the dish.

We are pleasantly surprised to see a pre-dessert arrive next - white chocolate sorbet with citrus foam. It seems the kitchen is big on its foams this evening, and the zesty foam is a nice refresher, whilst the sorbet hiding underneath is embedded with crunchy biscuity bits.

For dessert, two of us decide to split a pear tart tatin, vanilla, garlic, bay leaf. We soon discover that the "for two people" description wasn't kidding when we are greeted with a seriously generous tart straight from the pan, adorned with cinnamon, vanilla pods and star anise. Our waiter dutifully splits the tart into two, tops each half with ice cream and deposits a rather interesting garlic whipped cream into a smaller container lined with cubes of pear. Garlic with dessert? The subtle garlic flavour actually goes quite well with all the sugar and spices, even though it makes the dessert a little more savoury/heavy. The sweetness of the caramel and pear ooze through the deliciously flaky pastry layers.

So good, but so full now.

I have to say that my photos simply don't do justice to the food. Some of the others' dishes I didn't capture on camera were serious works of art. Whilst I can't say there was anything mindblowingly strange or out there Heston Blumenthal style (the foams came closest), each course was very well thought out and there was definitely no shortage of creativity. More importantly, every dish was solidly executed and the flavours and textures were fantastic.

Simply put, Midsummer House is a world-class restaurant, and in my mind deserves all the accolades it receives. There will always be haters and people who are disappointed. Don't expect explosions and liquid nitrogen pouring out of your dishes. Do expect seriously good food. Given the quality of the restaurant, their £35 three-course set lunch and £39.50 four-course set dinner are exceptional value.

I will definitely be going back sometime for lunch.

Midsummer House
Midsummer Common, Cambridge, CB4 1HA
Tel: +44 (0) 1223 369 299
www.midsummerhouse.co.uk

Warning: The map LIES. It's actually further west along the river, closr to Victoria Ave.
Update: It looks like somebody fixed up the location on the map!

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New Series -- QED: Zucchini omelette

 

This is the first post of a new series called QED. No, it is not quantum electrodynamics and we don’t prove a mathematical theorem in cooking science. With this series, we want to show that it is possible to cook Quick, Easy and Delicious meals with the limited kitchenware and fridge space available to the average student in college. The QED series shall become a collection of simple recipes that doesn’t necessitate a load of fancy ingredients or hours of cooking.

This dish is one my mom used to cook in summer with the fresh zucchini from our garden. I like this dish so much because of its taste of gently stir-fried zucchini and because, apart from the zucchini, usually I have all the ingredients in my kitchen cabinet. For two people you will need:

• 2 zucchini
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup of milk
• flour
• herbs (e.g. rosemary, oregano, provencial herbs)
• a clove of garlic
• salt and pepper
• oil
• parmigiano cheese

Whisk the two eggs with the milk and add the flour a little at the time, trying to avoid the formation of lumps. Add as much flour as needed to obtain nice omelette batter, not dense and not too liquid. Press the garlic into the mixture and add the herbs, salt and pepper to taste. Fresh herbs are preferred but any dried herb you can find in your kitchen will do. Don’t be afraid to use quite a bit of herbs, it makes the omelette more savoury.

Cut the zucchini lengthwise in half and then into semicircles. Gently stir-fry them in a hot pan with little oil. Don’t cook them to death, they are best when they start to get just slightly brown but they are still “al dente”.

Fry the omelette on both side till golden brown and top one half of it with the zucchini. Fold over the other half. Finally place on a nice plate and serve with some grated parmigiano on top. Bon Appétit!

PS: If you like you can add small pieces of cooked ham to the batter, which makes the omelette even tastier.

PPS: As I child I loved to eat it with ketchup. It might sound outrageous, but it tastes quite good. Try it. The noble alternative is to decorate the plate with halved cherry tomatoes.

Grease is the word...

When work gets you down, it's a Saturday and you wake up at midday, the only thing left to do is demolish a plate of french toast and bacon slathered in leftover maple syrup.

Disgusting or delicious? 

Cocum, Cambridge

Before I start about Cocum, just a few random bits and pieces I wanted to mention. Firstly, why the knife and fork?  Well the Dancer brought her DSLR camera to dinner to take some decent photos, rather than using my little old point-and-shoot. The result? Pretty sure I'll need much more practice handling such serious equipment, although I was not helped by the fact that the lights above our table were broken. I now have seven 20mb (raw) photos of the same set of cutlery on my computer, so I thought I should use at least one of them.

So actually I've been contemplating buying a new camera for food photography amongst other things. I've mainly been looking at the expensive compact range - the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5 has been recommended to me, whilst PC says there's a better Olympus which has just been released (this one perhaps). Do you guys have any suggestions?

Two other exciting things:
* This blog might see something from the other side of the Atlantic in the near future;
* Last night I paid a visit to what is (theoretically at least) the best restaurant in Cambridge... oh yes, will get blogging soon

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Pre-movie dinner? It's good for you. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3d-qENAaNbM)

Cambridge has so many Indian restaurants, each offering a disconcertingly large number of options, making for a rather mind-boggling number of Indian (and other subcontinental) dishes. However when you take into account that they mostly serve similar variations on North Indian style curries, naan and this so-called Balti cuisine which apparently is a Birmingham invention, the choice is not as expansive as it might seem.

Given this, a few of us were keen to try out Cocum, a Keralan (southwestern) Indian restaurant suggested by Lady G all the way back during our gnocchi-making fest. We finally got around to trying it out one evening before going to the Arts Picturehouse for a movie.

Someone clearly had a lot of fun writing this.

We arrived to a find a reasonably peaceful and subdued Sunday evening unfolding in the restaurant. Upon reading the menu description however, it became apparent that this would be a life-changing experience. Nothing wrong with a little hype! The four of us on one side of the table decided sharing was indeed caring in order to maximise the number of dishes we each could try.

The Pope's requests for 'the one with butter' were met with the paneer butter masala, whilst the vegetable kootu was a recommendation by the waiter after the Dancer's aubergine thiyal wasn't available.

Left: Vegetable Kootu (£4.75) ; Right: Paneer Butter Masala (£5.50)

The servings were modest in size but reasonable given the price. To be honest, the kootu was a little reminiscent of Trinity curries, where rather unfortunately the dominant spice is salt. The paneer was a little more to my taste, with precious few cubes of the cheese in a thick creamy sauce. However I do think that butter chicken/paneer is one of the most generic and over-popularised dishes, and most definitely North Indian in style. The Pope didn't seem to mind (and rightly so I guess), because it has butter in it, and butter makes everything taste good.

Left: Kerala Paratha (£1.95) ; Right: Appam (£1.75)

Strangely enough, the breads were more exciting than the curries themselves. My only prior experience with parathas are the frozen kind you buy in supermarkets which turn out slightly crisp like puff pastry when cooked. This one was still full of delicious pastry layer goodness but with a soft texture, perfect for scooping up curry sauce. The appam was wonderfully light and spongy, and I probably could have gone through quite a few of them if we hadn't ordered rice too.

Chicken Shashlick (£7.95)

The chicken shashlick was solid if not inspiring, with generous cubes of barbecued tandoori chicken and onion. Again I think tandoori cooking is more of a North Indian thing, although I'm no expert. Also I'm curious about the origins of shashlick (Wikipedia says it's spelled shashlik) as it was basically chicken kebab with indian spices - perhaps for the naming of this dish, the word has just been borrowed from Russian.

Lamb Masala Dosa (£7.95)

By far and away, the star of the show was the lamb masala dosa - a giant larger-than-plate sized crepe filled with spiced lamb and potato, accompanied by sambar (a lentil curry) and coconut chutney. The crepe itself was thin, light and crisp, with a generous amount of satisfyingly starchy lamb masala in the middle. Whilst overpowered by the lamb, the sambar and chutney worked better with the plain unfilled dosa sections flanking either side of the plate. Based on sheer size, a thumbs up from me!

On the whole, I suspect that it would have been a more enjoyable experience if we had chosen some of the more unusual or authentic Keralan dishes. We also weren't helped by the time pressure which comes from needing to finish eating before a deadline, like the start of a movie! All that remains now is to try that other Keralan restaurant in Cambridge, The Rice Boat...

We'll save that for some time later.

Cocum
71 Castle St, Cambridge, CB3 0AH
Tel: +44 (0) 1223 366 668
www.cocumrestaurant.co.uk


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SMBC #2 - Broccoli Lemon Chicken with Cashews; Chilli Tofu with Chicken

Here's the second edition of our SMBC series, this time courtesy of PC.

Ingredients:

General:	Seasoning:	Extras & Decoration:
450g deboned chicken thighs 300g tender stem broccoli 400g rice	1 tablespoon cornflour 1 tablespoon honey 2 tablespoons sesame oil 2 lemons (preferably organic) 1/8 cube of vegetable stock 1 tablespoon soy sauce 2 large garlic cloves pepper and salt	canola oil for frying fresh chilli if you like it hot thin strips of lemon zest handful of cashew nuts

• Start with roasting the cashew nuts in a non-stick pan at medium heat, flipping them over repeatedly so that they don’t get burnt. 

• Next, peel off a few pieces of zest from the lemon using a sharp knife or peeler. Avoid the white part of the rind, it just tastes bitter. Cut the zest into very thin strips, set aside some for decoration. 

• Chop the remaining lemon rind and put it into a bowl together with the finely chopped garlic, the juice from one lemon, honey, soy sauce, sesame oil and salt and pepper to taste. Mix the seasoning thoroughly and add the chicken meat, cut into lengthy chunks, give it a good stir and put it to rest for 10 minutes.

• In the meantime, wash and cut the broccoli if too large. To obtain a nice tasty sauce with the right consistency, dissolve the cornflour and the vegetable stock in a little water and add the juice from the second lemon. Cook the rice in a separate pot.

• Fry first the marinated chicken in a well heated pan with some oil until golden brown and set aside on a plate. Subsequently stir-fry the broccoli with the chilli in the same pan. If the broccoli starts to become brown, add some water. Don’t overcook, the broccoli should retain a nice green colour and remain crunchy.

• Finally combine the chicken meat, the broccoli, the cashew nuts and the corn flour-lemon juice mixture in the pan and heat gently till the sauce thickens.

• A nice way to present the dish is to press the rice into a scoop. With the help of a spoon, arrange the rice hemispheres on the plate and top them with the chicken and some sauce. Garnish with some more cashews and spice it up with the lemon rind strips. 

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Ingredients for the Tofu:
400g firm tofu 150g deboned chicken thighs 2 large cloves garlic 4 spring onions	oyster sauce fresh chilli sesame oil	light soy sauce dark soy sauce canola oil for frying

• Mince the chicken and mix it with the soy sauce and the oyster sauce and a few spoons of sesame oil in a bowl. Separately, mince garlic and chop the spring onions and chilli. 

• Drain the tofu and cut it into cubes of about 2cm edge length.  
  

• Fry the garlic in a pan with little oil, followed by the chicken mince. When cooked, add the tofu, followed by chilli and spring onion and fry for another 2-3 minutes. Serve in a bowl as garnish for the rice.  

And SMBC proudly presents the end result...

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Join us next week when we take on Greek cuisine, minus a grill or oven of any sort. And as always, let us know if you have a recipe suggestion! Have a good week =)

PS. No we did not have this for breakfast. 
PPS. We went to 3 different supermarkets in an attempt to find silken tofu without going to Mill Rd. We failed.

Hey Pesto!

I am the proud new owner of a coriander pot plant. Her name is Catherine. Setting me back only £1, she seemed to make far more financial sense in the long run when compared to the regular packaged stuff. Whether she survives to fulfil her potential is uncertain however, considering I just savaged a significant percentage of her foliage to make pesto.

Death by a thousand cuts, and yet she still smiles at me.

Actually I was going to make a regular basil pesto, but as fate would have it, Sainsbury had none of the pot plant variety in stock. I had actually only ever heard of basil pesto until recently, when I had a ton of leftover coriander after making rice paper rolls and no idea what to do with it. Coriander pesto is more gentle in flavour, which might be surprising considering it usually has a strong distinctive smell which some people can't stand.

The following recipe is somewhat plagarised/butchered from something Dr C cooked this one time a while back...

Fusilli with Zucchini and Coriander Pesto

Coriander Pesto:	Everything Else:
large bunch of coriander extra virgin olive oil several cloves garlic 1 small chilli handful of pine nuts parmesan cheese, grated	400 g fusilli pasta  2 large zucchinis, sliced into batons 100 g pancetta or bacon, cubed 20 cherry tomatoes, halved

Serves 3-4

For the pesto... firstly, look mum, no blender! College accommodation rules don't allow them, but a knife is perfectly sufficient.

1. Finely chop the coriander, followed by garlic and chilli.
2. Combine in a bowl and add oil until paste-like consistency is reached.
3. Add pine nuts then grated cheese until you're happy with the taste. A little salt might help too, or perhaps a squeeze of lemon juice. The pesto will probably get a bit dry after adding cheese, so top up with oil as you see fit.

I was deliberately vague with the amounts because A) I don't actually remember how much I used; and B) it's up to personal taste. By the way, here's a video of Jamie Oliver telling you how to use a knife. If you never really learnt basic skills in the kitchen (like me), this video is really informative. I first saw it at this food blog!



For the pasta...
1. Boil fusilli until almost cooked. Meanwhile...
2. Fry pancetta without oil (it's fatty enough) for a minute or two.
3. Add sliced zucchini and fry until they start to soften.
4. Add tomato and pesto and fry for another minute. Hopefully the pasta is done and drained by now!
5. Add pasta to the sauce and stir until mixed evenly and everything is heated through. Add salt/pepper/cheese to taste.

Translations:
* Strange people from some country called "America" call coriander "cilantro". Crazy folks.
* Even stranger people from this "United Kingdom" place call zucchini "courgettes". Don't be influenced by their madness.

Charlie Chan, Cambridge

"My palate has been stunted from all this Trinity stodge." 

Having eaten in hall once too often this week, Pope JP decides that we (Dr C and myself) should go out for dinner tonight. Given his recent cravings for Chinese food, we decide to head to Seven Days on Regent St, which serves pretty authentic dishes and seems to be especially popular amongst the local Asian contingent. True to form however, the restaurant is completely full when we arrive at 7:15 pm.

Given the queue growing in front of the counter, the decision is made to adopt plan B and try out the other Chinese restaurant just down the road - Charlie Chan.

Try as I might, I can't help but associate the name Charlie Chan with a really dodgy bottle shop in Sydney CBD. So it is with trepidation that I enter the restaurant, not helped by the slightly cringeworthy musak and neon lights which adorn the foyer. While the Pope and Dr C aren't bothered at all, I am a little relieved when we head upstairs to be greeted by a more comfortable dining area.

The three of us decide to order one dish each to share, although The Pope and Dr C both want aubergine with ginger and garlic. Always the gentleman, The Pope changes his mind and goes for beef with chinese mushrooms in oyster sauce, whilst I go for the barbecued belly pork with yam in clay pot.

Beef with Chinese Mushroom in Oyster Sauce (£8.50)

First to arrive is the beef, which as expected is pretty standard fare. The beef is tender and there are mushrooms enough to satisfy The Pope's chinese mushroom cravings.

Barbecued Belly Pork with Yam in Clay Pot (£12.50)

Next is the pork, which for some reason I thought would be this, turns out to be a rather generous serving of this (I should have read the word "barbecued'). Nonetheless, the streaky slices of pork belly match quite well with the yam, and the whole cloves of garlic are actually surprisingly tasty!

Aubergine with Garlic and Ginger (£8.00)

However the aubergine is unanimously the favourite dish of the three - you can taste the heat (temperature) retained in the eggplant from the braising (literally 'red cooked' in Chinese i think...), plus we all lap up the sauce in all its oily goodness.

The overall consensus? Perhaps not the most original or ground-breaking Chinese food, but at the end of the night we are three very definitely satisfied stomachs.

Charlie Chan
14 Regent Street, Cambridge, CB2 1DB
Tel: +44 (0) 1223 359336


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Saturday Morning Breakfast Club #1 - Buttermilk Pancakes with Berry Compote

We're very proud to present the first meeting of the Saturday Morning Breakfast Club (henceforth known as SMBC). If you don't know what SMBC is all about, find out here!

Actually, this regular weekend cooking event was initially meant to be a lunch/dinner thing, after being inspired by a great Chinese New Year potluck party earlier this week. As with all spontaneous ideas formed in the wee hours of the night, we only realised several days later that The Shok would be busy during lunch/dinner on Saturday, plus I would be out of town all Sunday. Desperate not to fall at the first hurdle, it was decided that we'd do a Saturday breakfast instead.

This recipe is adapted from Mum's recipe. Thanks Mum! There are so many occasions that I've wanted to make buttermilk pancakes, only to realise that I don't have buttermilk in the house. Apparently you can make your own buttermilk by adding something acidic (lemon juice or vinegar) to milk, but I'm yet to give this a try. Now that I'm in Cambridge it's not so much of a problem, living about a two minute walk from the supermarket...

- YH (aka Hangman)

Buttermilk Pancakes with Berry Compote

Pancake batter:	Berry compote:	Extras:
2 cups (280 g) white flour 2 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt 4 tbsp caster sugar 2 eggs 2 cups (480 mL) buttermilk* 6 tsbp butter, melted	200 g blueberries 200 g strawberries sugar to taste lemon juice (optional)	icing sugar maple syrup bananas sunflower oil

Makes roughly 20 pancakes (~8 cm diameter)

Procedure:
For the berry compote...
1. Cut strawberries into bite sized pieces, and add to a pot together with blueberries and a liberal amount of sugar. The amount of sugar varies depending on the fruit - add enough to balance out the tartness of the berries. You can also add lemon juice for an extra kick.
2. Reduce over medium heat until the juice starts to thicken.

For the pancakes...
1. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar and salt in a large bowl.
2. In a separate bowl, lightly whisk together the eggs and melted butter followed by the buttermilk.
3. Pour the liquid mixture over the flour and gently stir until just combined. Be careful not to overmix, otherwise you will squeeze out all the bubbles and your pancakes will not be fluffy!

4.  Place a generous spoonful of pancake batter on a well heated pan with a little sunflower oil. Cook until small bubbles appear on the top of the pancake, then flip and cook until other side is golden brown.

Homage to this.

5. Make a pancake stack and top with berry compote, followed by a dusting of icing sugar.

Pan-fried banana halves with maple syrup also makes for pancake deliciousness...

Some tips:
* Be warned... we were slightly confused when the buttermilk we bought was surprisingly thick and yoghurty. As we consequently found out from a reliable source, buttermilk comes in two types. Instead of the more runny traditional buttermilk we had expected, it turns out we had bought cultured buttermilk. To counteract the extra thickness, we added a little milk/water until the batter consistency was less like bread dough, and more like pancake mix, and everybody lived happily ever after.

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Stay tuned until next week when PC or The Shok will bring you new culinary breakthroughs using the infamous toaster-microwave-kettle combo. Ok, maybe the hob too.

Do you have any recipe suggestions for our weekend cooking expeditions? We're always looking for new ideas, so leave us a comment to let us know!

Delicious beginnings... Gnocchi alla Sorrentina

It's happened. After much procrastination, months of good intentions and unfulfilled promises, this blog finally exists! For far too long I've been ranting about starting a food blog, so I'm both relieved and excited that it's gotten off the ground.

I was contemplating writing some sort of introduction here, this being the first post and all, but in the end I hope the food speaks for itself. So without further ado...

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Home-made gnocchi seems like a daunting task. Getting the right balance of potato and flour is a strange and mysterious art. My first and last sojourn into gnocchi-making ended in soggy oversized and misshapen mushballs, which was why I was so excited when the Dancer informed me that she'd enlisted our Italian friend Dr C to help us make the real thing.

We organised a dinner party and invited a few friends to join us for an impromptu cooking lesson. As it turned out, our Doc had only made gnocchi a couple of times before, but she assured us it wouldn't be very difficult, with the only problem being the amount of time it would take.

In the end, she was spot on about the time - 2.5 hours from potato-peeling to pasta-on-plate, which was subsequently demolished in ten minutes. Ten minutes of cheese-meltingly delicious heaven mind you. And even for the preceding 150 minutes, I had plenty of fun rolling the dough and shaping the gnocchi.

Here's the recipe; it's actually ridiculously simple in terms of ingredients, so it's definitely worth a try if you have an evening to spare and friends to enslave...

Gnocchi alla Sorrentina 

Gnocchi:	Pasta Sauce:
1 kg white flour 1 kg potatoes salt to taste	1 large jar (~750 mL) passata 1 block (~ 400 g) mozarella cheese basil to taste

Serves 5-6

1. Boil the potatoes for roughly 20-30 minutes, until they are just cooked enough to mash. Skin the cooked potatoes whilst hot.
2. Create a well of flour and add the skinned potatoes to the centre of the well, and then thoroughly mash the potatoes.

3. Bring in the flour from the sides of the well and knead until a dough forms. The dough will probably be sticky and too wet, so keep adding flour and kneading until a nice and elastic dough forms. The amount of flour can really vary - we used around 600 g probably. Whilst kneading, add salt to taste.

4. Once the dough is ready, take a handful and roll it into ~2-3 cm diameter cylinders. Then cut the cylinders into small ~1 cm wide chunks. Shape the chunks by rolling against the end of a fork. A bit hard to describe, so see the picture to get the best idea.

5. Leave the gnocchi out to dry for 30 mins.
6. Boil the gnocchi until they float, then take them out with a slotted spatula and transfer to a pan. Using a strainer might be a bad idea because the gnocchi are quite delicate.
7. Add passata to the gnocchi and heat until warmed through.
8. Cut mozzarella into 2 cm cubes and add to pasta, followed by torn/chopped basil and stir through briefly to get yummy melted strings of cheese.

Some notes:
- I'm actually not sure what varieties of potatoes are the best for making gnocchi. The ones we bought said "ideal for mashing" and they were floury and seemed to work just fine.