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Friday, January 11, 2013

A little cooking anyone?

There is nothing new on the crafting front this morning, so I thought I would share a recipe with you all. It's one of my favorite things to eat from Germany. As a kid growing up, my grandmother would make these with many different dishes.

German dumplings especially from Bavaria are a real specialty. You would eat dumplings always with a meat dish and gravy, like Rinderbraten (Roast beef), Goulasch or Beef rolls or Rouladen. The Bavarian version is using buns which are some days old, they call them in Bavaria “Semmel” – that’s why the Bavarian name is “Semmelknoedel”. In the West and North of Germany we call them “Kloesse” but whatever name you give them, the shape of them is round and they look like little tennis balls, and are boiled in hot water. We have practically different dumplings for every meal – they can be the side dish of a main meal, or be in a soup, or a sweet dessert. The dessert dumplings would have prunes or apricots inside and are served with melted butter, sugar and cinnamon. 



Ingredients Bavarian Dumplings
3 older German buns (Brötchen, if you don’t have German buns, use french baguette)
1/8 l milk
2 medium sized eggs
fresh parsley (1 bundle)
salt
1 tbsp salt for the cooking water

Cooking Instructions Bavarian Dumplings
- cut the buns in thin slices or cubes.
- add salt and the eggs.
- Pour milk in a pot with salt and bring it to a boil.
- While the milk is on the stove, chop parsley fine.
- Now add as much milk as needed (milk must be hot), depending on size of the buns; mix it and add parsley
- Cover it with a damp kitchen cloth and let it rest for 30 minutes (the bread will soak all the milk and become a dough); should the dough be too liquid add some more bread crumbs
- In  a big pot bring water with salt to a boil
- Form dumplings – if you have wet hands (use cold or warm water) it is easier to form them.
- Do a test: make small dumpling and cook it in the water; should the dumpling fall apart while cooking add more bread crumbs into the mix; should the dumpling be too solid add another egg.
- Every time you form a dumpling make your hand wet.
- Put the dumplings into the boiling water; they will be under the water but will come up to the surface.
- Reduce heat right away so they can be cooked in slightly boiling water which becomes lesser boiling.
- The dumplings would “soak” in the water for 20-25 minutes.
- Depending on the size of the dumplings cooking time can reduce to 15 minutes.

Take the dumplings out of the water and serve them right away
Serve them with Goulasch, or some meat with a juicy gravy; without gravy they might be too dry.
Tips
If you like add other herbs into the dumpling mix, such as parsley or thyme, consider that strong herbs might be dominating too much.
You also can add bacon
Hope some of you will try these. They are just yummy!


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