Cheesy gnocchi and Swiss chard bake

Swiss Chard is like the surly, unloved offspring of a furtive tryst between celery and choy-sum. It's slender and leafy, savoury, kind of stringy, and has a bold enough flavour to carry a dish largely on its own. Most of the recipes I looked at used only the stalks. The books advised keeping the leaves for making a soup or cooking as greens, and then never went so far as to actually offer the corresponding recipe.Don't let this make you suspicious - the leaves will cook like turnip tops, or a robust spring green. Or you can just shred them in with the stalks. It works just fine.Most of the recipes I saw were either tossed through pasta with a strong cheese, or in a creamy sauce. There were plenty of gratins, and actually the odd suggestion for steaming or frying the leaves. I opted to combine some of the cream/gratin ideas and make a quick gnocchi bake with cheese.

Cheese problems

Ideally, I'd have liked Taleggio. It's strong and gooey and melts deliciously if you stir it through a cream sauce in little cubes. But there was no Taleggio to be had yesterday. Instead, I opted for Ossau-Iraty. This was not a massively informed decision - it smelled good, and the name is fun to say. In practice, it's like a compromise between Taleggio and something firmer and gentler like Gouda. It's a semi-soft sheep's cheese,and it ended up working quite well. In fact, it's possible Taleggio would have smothered the chard.

Ingredients:

• A large bunch of Swiss Chard
• Ossau-Iraty cheese
• Milk
• Crème fraîche
• A little flour
• Gnocchi
• A little butter
• Wine (optional, and in this case about a glass of Chilean Pedro Ximénez)

Instructions:

The first thing is to wash the chard and separate the leaves from the stalks. You could include the leaves in this too, I guess. I sliced in a couple. Cut the stalks into rough little matchsticks, and set them frying gently in a little butter until they soften. I guess you could also toss in a bit of garlic.When the chard is softened, sprinkle in a little flour, and stir it through. Let the flour cook for a minute or two on a low heat, and stirring so as to avoid burning. Add milk and crème fraîche (and wine if you're using it), and stir it together until it thickens slightly into a light white sauce. It doesn't want to be very thick - hence the small amount of flour, perhaps only a scant tablespoon.Add a little of the cheese, and let it all melt and work together into a basic cheese sauce. Season if needed.Cook the gnocchi quickly in boiling water, and stir them through the sauce mix. To finish, tip everything into a gratin dish, or something suitable, layer plenty of the cheese on top, and bake it in a hot oven until the cheese bubbles and browns just a little.

To be honest, this won't be for everyone. The chard can still be stringy, and the green, stalky flavour won't be for all palates. Personally, I love greens and celery. Choy-sum with plenty of soy and garlic gets me genuinely excited. So I love this shit. The cheese and cream go well with the celery-ish greenness of the chard flavour.I made a main course of it, but you could pair the dish up with a salad, or even alongside fish maybe. It might even take finocchiona in the sauce. If you omit the gnocchi and just make slightly-poncy chard in cheese sauce, it's probably quite a serviceable all-purpose side, too.