“Cheeseboard” Gnocchi

So, last week it was my husband’s birthday and without any communication between us, all friends and family settled for the topic “cheese”. I had bought him some axes (yes, I know, no, I actually mean axes) to cut cheese, his aunt had bought him a beautiful cheese board – although you won’t be able to see it in the pictures, as I overdid it on the cheese – and our friends got him vouchers for a cheese company. We definitely had a good laugh about this.

The theme for the Birthday Dinner was fairly clear to me, so I went to put together a beautiful cheese board: Truffled Brie, a Blue Cheese, a mature cheddar, goats cheese, an incredibly runny camembert, you name it, accompanied by grapes, olives, bread, crackers and semi-dried tomatoes. This is the right time to tell you that I’m not a huge fan of cheese, right? I mean, I genuinely think it’s a gorgeous ingredient, but stinky cheese is absolutely not for me. So I also added some ingredients for myself, such as strawberries, serrano ham and some chutneys.

My husband loved his birthday dinner and then left to work in a different country for a week – leaving me with a fridge full of cheese and no idea what to do with it. After I froze the blue cheese and gifted the truffled brie, I decided to go with what I called “cheeseboard gnocchi” – and here is what you need for it:

At least 3 different cheeses – I used the cheddar, some raclette cheese, parmesan and feta cheese – a pack of gnocchi, an onion, a teaspoon of sugar, 100ml of cream, a pear, several spoons of caramelised onion chutney (mine was by “The English Provender Co”) and a small piece of butter. If you bought a bottle of port for your cheese board, you can also add a splash (I used about 50ml) of port.

Finely slice the pear and the onion and fry in the butter in the pan. Add the sugar and let it caramelise with the liquid from onion and pear, then add the port. Add the gnocchi and the cream and a small amount of water (roughly 200ml), then add the cheese. Lower the temperature and let the cheese melt, then stir, season to your liking and add your pan to the oven for roughly 20-25 minutes. When your gnocchi are golden brown, add the chutney and enjoy your dish.

Personally I think the sweet flavours of the pear and the onion chutney really underline the strong, salty flavours of the cheese, but it depends on which cheeses you’re using. I would definitely recommend to go with bolder flavours, instead of mozzarella or Emmental for example. If gnocchi are a texture nightmare for you, you can use pasta, but I would definitely cook them for half of the time indicated on the pack.