Earl Cooks Gnocchi alla Sorrentina with Sausage

We love gnocchi. We have tried it in many forms, including my wife's homemade gnocchi made with her homemade ricotta. This is another version that took a bit of adjusting to get the seasoning right, but eventually "Turkey" (a.k.a. my wife), said it was a keeper. The genesis of this dish came while shopping, where I found some bulk mild Italian sausage at a terrific price (99￠/lb.). It was 2 lbs but I needed to use it rather quickly because it was nearing the sell-by date. Two lbs. is too much for the two of us for one meal, especially when added to pasta or something else, so my plan was simple. It would become two meals! Not two different meals but two of the same with tweaking taking it from okay to very good! I went to my pantry and my freezer to collect ideas.

What I found was 2 items I had never used from Trader Joe's. Frozen Gnocchi alla Sorrentina & their Traditional Marinara Sauce. I will admit that the differences between tomato sauce, marinara sauce, and other tomato based sauces is somewhat lost on me, so I buy what I think I will like. Gnocchi alla Sorentia literally means Gnocchi in the style of Sorrento.That is, gnocchi with tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese.

Since I would be adding A LOT of Italian sausage, to the frozen product I would add MORE tomato sauce in the form of marinara, and more mozzarella cheese, which I grated from block mozzarella. [*HINT: America's Test Kitchen recommends block mozzarella when you want stringy, stretchy cheese, not the fresh stuff !]

I shredded the cheese ahead of time, and I think it takes quite a lot of cheese. My wife likes the cheese to take the spicy edge off of the sausage spices.

With the bulk sausage, start by breaking it up by hand into a LARGE skillet pre-heated on medium to medium high heat. We want to both lightly brown and render a bunch of the fat from the sausage. As it cooks, continue to break it up into smaller and smaller chunks. Take time with this, you don't want it to be crispy, just firm and cooked through. Once the sausage is cooked through, remove it to a colander in a bowl to allow the fat to drain away. Remove any excess fat from the pan with a paper towel, and return to the heat, lowered to medium.

The frozen gnocchi mix is a bit strange. The sauce is in frozen disks, and looks odd at first in the pan. Just continue to heat it in the pan until it becomes sauce and gnocchi. Because I was adding the sausage, I needed extra sauce. When I added the sauce, it looked much better.

I added half a jar (8 or 9 oz.) of Trader Joe's Traditional Marinara Sauce to the cooked gnocchi & sauce. Now I had a base to which I would add the sausage and cheese.

Take the cooked and drained sausage and and add it back to the pan with the sauce & gnocchi. This gives the sausage a chance to flavor the sauce, and for the sauce to flavor the sausage. The gnocchi will pick up flavors from both.

Now top with the shredded mozzarella and cover the pan to melt the cheese

It is now covered with yummy white gooey-ness and was super stringy as you can see from the bowl sides which are covered in cheese strings.

This was delicious, but the sausage was a bit spicy for my wife's delicate palate. But I have a fix for that! As I said, this would be enough for 2 meals. Here is the adjustments I made to accommodate "Turkey's" palate.

ADJUSTMENTS:
To make the flavor more mild I simply made adjustments to the quantities of 2 ingredients: Cheese and tomato sauce. I added 4 oz. of cheese and another cup of marinara sauce to the second batch. The cheese I added to the sauce and let the dairy moderate the spice of the sausage, again topping the whole dish with another 4 oz. of cheese and allowing it to melt. My wife liked it and said it is a keeper with the added dairy and sauce! So my sausage bargain made 2 dinners and a lunch!