Potato gnocchi alla norma

Wash and scrub the potatoes and put them whole and peeled in a saucepan with cold water. Bring to the boil and cook for 30-40 minutes. To check if they are cooked, pierce them a knife that should go in easily and come out clean.
Once they are ready, drain them and peel them off. 

Mash them with a vegetable mill or a potato masher directly on the pastry board. 
Spread out the mashed potatoes with a dough cutter so that all the remaining steam can escape. 

Add salt to the flour and mix it with the potatoes a little at a time and start kneading as little as possible, or the gnocchi will become hard. The less flour the potatoes take, the better, the softer the gnocchi will be. Add the egg if you wish.

Cut the dough into pieces and shape them into strands. Stretch them with the hands, rolling them on the pastry board until they are about 1.5 cm thick, then divide the strands into 2 cm thick dumplings. 

Pass each dumpling over the rigagnocchi board, exerting a certain amount of pressure: they will take on the characteristic ribbing, and a cavity will form that will hold the sauce. 
Cook the dumplings in boiling salted water a few at a time. As soon as they rise to the surface, they are ready to be topped with the chosen sauce.
Peel and finely slice the aubergine into rounds and fry them a little at a time in 170°-180° oil. Drain the excess oil using paper towels and set them aside.

In a saucepan, heat a tablespoon of olive oil and let the tomato puree take on the flavour of the bunch of basil leaves. Cook for 10 minutes, letting it thicken a little, season with salt and pepper and add the fried aubergines, stirring gently.

Top the freshly drained gnocchi with a generous grating of salted ricotta cheese and a few leaves of fresh basil.