Fruit Dumplings with Cottage Cheese and Butter

Ovocné Knedlíky

Strawberry Version

If you ask any adult Czech living abroad what childhood foods they miss the most, the Fruit Dumplings will be at the top of a list, no doubt. My mom was a master in making these and when I came to Canada every summer I dreamed about them. When she visited us for the first time it was this recipe that I just had to have. The version here is slightly modified because European ingredients are bit different but taste is the same.

There are several types of dough used for fruit dumplings. Some regions use dough made with potatoes and flour, others use cottage cheese and flour and some combine cottage cheese, boiled and riced potatoes and flour. I like to follow the KISS principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid) and just use plain flour.

 Ingredients for the Dough

1/4 cup milk (room temperature)
1/4 cup lukewarm water
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
3 egg yolks or 2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp. instant yeast
1/4 cup sugar
Pinch of salt
2 cups all-purpose flour

Filling

1 pint strawberries, hulled, washed and halved.

 Process

In a bowl, mix together milk, water, vanilla extract and eggs.
In a food processor, pulse flour, salt, sugar and instant yeast to combine.
Slowly add liquid contents from bowl through the feed tube and mix till dough doesn’t stick to work bowl, about 45 seconds.
Since the flour moisture content varies you may have to adjust the ratio of liquid to flour by working in more flour if too wet or adding more water if the dough doesn’t form a ball.
Place the dough in clean, lightly buttered bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let it rise in warm and draft-free place until the dough has doubled in size, about 1 hour.

 Assembly

Punch the dough down and roll it out on floured board. You can roll the dough into 12-by-16 inch rectangle and cut it into 12 four-inch squares or roll it into a cylinder shape about 2” diameter, 18” long and cut into 12 disks about 1-1/2” wide and then flattened into pie shape that is 4” diameter. I did the later because I find it easier to make a ball with round disk instead of square.
Lay 2 strawberry halves into center of each disk, enclose the sides and roll it into a ball. Make sure that all the seams are tight and strawberries are well enclosed.
Place each dumpling on floured baking sheet, cover with towel and let them rise for 10 minutes.
In 4-quart pot, bring 3-quarts of lightly salted water to a bubbling boil. With a large slotted spoon, carefully place 4 or more dumplings (depending how wide your pot is) in the water. Partially cover the pot and once dumplings come to top, gently boil for 4 minutes. Turn dumplings over and cook additional 3 minutes.
Remove dumplings to large platter with a slotted spoon and immediately open each with 2 forks or prick them in several places with sharp needle to release the steam.
Repeat the process with remaining dumplings.
To serve, place 3 dumplings on preheated plate, top with cottage cheese, dribble melted butter on top and as an option, sprinkle sugar on top.
These dumplings are also popular when filled with pitted plums.

Dinner Ideas or My Week in Kitchen

Actually, this is what I have prepared last week J.

Last week I prepared our meals using first item that caught my eye in fridge, freezer or pantry.  Basically, I was just improvising all week long. Most meals were sort of inspired by weather. It was all over the board, one day it was sunny and in mid 20s and next day the temperature stayed in single digits.

Bok Choy and Noodle Chicken Soup

Nice comfort food. With Long Asian egg noodles it is nice vegetarian lunch. Beside bok choy I have added julienned carrots and green onions.

Pork Tenderloin Schnitzel with Potatoes.

As usual, I used Panko instead of traditional bread crumbs for that extra crunch. Served with wedge of lemon and gherkin on side. Leftover schnitzel is great with rye bread as a sandwich.

Beef Rouladen with Rice.

I will post full recipe later today.

Green Beans, Red pepper, Hot Italian Sausage and Potato Sauté.

Nice peasant meal and simplicity itself. Start boiling potatoes cut into serving pieces. Meanwhile, sauté sausage with skin removed, add green beans and julienned red pepper and drizzle little white wine over it to create some steam. Cover and cook about 3 minutes. Mixed in boiled potatoes and serve. Because the sausage is so strongly flavored you don’t really need additional herbs or spices.

Thin Crust Pizza

I used my own pizza dough and sauce. For topping it was 4 cheese mix and toped with zucchini, red pepper, sweet onions, Cremini mushrooms and hot Italian sausage. Our favorite and I bake it almost every week.

Beef Congee

It never stops amaze me what you can do with just one half cup of rice, some stock and 1-1/2 to 2 hours of your time. For topping I used shredded flank steak marinated with soy sauce, white pepper and sesame oil, freshly roasted peanuts, green onions and arugula. Arugula was a substitute for coriander that I didn’t have. Congee has to be cooked very, very slowly, just a little bubbles coming up, or it will burn.

Salmon with Green Beans and Red Pepper.

This meal deserves its own post. I will post full recipe right after the Rouladen recipe.

Beef and Mushroom Stew with Dumplings

The stews are so difficult to photograph. Anyway, this is regular beef stew with about dozen quartered cremini mushrooms added just 10 minutes before plating. Short cooking time doesn’t shrink them and they don’t release all their juices. This stew had more mushrooms then meat and tasted great.

Roasted Duck with Red Cabbage & Dumplings.

This is not a new recipe, just one interesting experience. The recipe is basically same as the one for Roasted Duck Legs.

I must have roasted at least 100 ducks, either whole, split or just legs or breasts but I have never come across such a lean, and on first try, tough duck. I say first try because I had to have a second go it. The duck was too tough after 2-1/2 hours of roasting at 350 °F and another 30 minutes at 375 °F. Not only that, but there was hardly any fat rendered at all. Usually I would have at least 1-1/2 cups of fat but this time I had one measly tablespoon. Makes you wonder if they were chasing the duck around or racing her/him on some duck race track. Anyway, nothing was lost, except I had to scramble to prepare emergency super. I just put the 2 halves back in roasting pan with a cup of water, covered the pan tight and basically steamed it in oven at 350 °F for another hour and half. Then uncovered the pan, raised heat to 375 °F and roasted half an hour more. It came out with nice crispy skin and moist meat that was falling of the bone. That bird spend as much time in the oven as barbecued pulled pork! Lesson learned: Check for amount of fat and adjust the cooking time accordingly.

Tenderloin with Sour Cream Sauce and Dumplings

Svíčková na Smetanĕ s Knedlíkem

Just like Pork Roast, Sauerkraut and Dumplings this is a typical Sunday lunch or supper but since tenderloin is so much more expensive then pork roast it is a very special meal. Also the fact that it takes a lot more work to prepare makes it even more special. There is a lot of chopping involved but food processor or mini chopper makes it a breeze. Same goes for finishing the sauce with immersion blender. Since both cuts of beef are quite dry the meat is larded.  

Ingredients:

2 lb beef tenderloin or eye of round (not as tender)

1 large carrot, peeled and very finely chopped

1 onion, peeled and very finely chopped

Celeriac, about 1/4, peeled and very finely chopped

1 parsnip, peeled and very finely chopped

2 slices of 3/8” thick bacon fat cut into 3/8” strips

1-1/2 cups beef or chicken stock

Freshly ground:

6 Allspice

1/2 tsp. peppercorns

6 cloves

1 bay leaf

1 cup sour cream

2 Tbs. flour

Directions:

Lard the meat and tie with butcher twine every 3”.

Season with ground spices on all sides and place into a heavy, sealable bag. Put all chopped vegetables in the bag together with meat and close the bag while removing as much air as possible. Distribute the vegetables until they cover all sides of meat. Place in refrigerator and marinate overnight.

Next day, remove meat and vegetables from bag, scrape all vegetables from meat, set aside and reserve vegetables.



Beef is ready for frying pan. Dumplings are raising in the background.

Preheat oven to 350 °F.

Heat a frying pan on high, add 1 Tbs. of oil and brown meat on all sides, about 3 minutes on each side. Move to a roasting pan.

In the same frying pan cook reserved vegetables till lightly brown, about 10 minutes. Remove to roasting pan and place most vegetables under the meat.

Pour in the stock, cover pan and bring to boil. When stock starts to boil turn off the heat and move the pan on middle rack in oven and roast (braise), covered, for 1-1/2 hours or till internal temperature reaches 140 °F.

Meanwhile, steam the dumplings that were made ahead.

Remove meat to plate, cover with aluminum foil and let rest.

Scrape all fond (brown coating on side of roasting pan) into vegetables and pour into high sided sauce pan. Using immersion blender, liquefy the sauce till smooth.

Place sauce pan on heat and bring to simmer. Meanwhile, in a bowl, whisk sour cream with flour till smooth and well combined. Pour in a cup or so of hot vegetable sauce and whisk till smooth (to temper the sauce). Remove all the sour cream mixture back into sauce pan, mix and reheat. Do not bring to hard boil, just a very gentle simmer. Pour in accumulated juices from meat into sauce pan and mix.

Ladle in some sauce on preheated plate, slice the meat and place on sauce together with dumpling slices. Serve with Pilsner Urquell.

Wonton Soup

Wonton soup is probably best known Chinese soup in North America. There are many versions of not only fillings but also shape of the dumplings. I usually make the simple traditional triangle wontons. If you have a stock and ground pork on hand it is very simple and fast comfort food to prepare and can be a whole meal in itself, just fill the soup bowl with wontons is all it takes.

Filling:

3/4 lb. lean ground pork

4 green onions, finely chopped

3 tbsp. soy sauce

1 tbsp. sake

1 tsp. sesame oil

1/4 tsp. white pepper

2 tsp. fresh grated ginger

2 tsp. crushed garlic

4 medium shitake mushrooms, soaked and chopped

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. sugar

wonton wrappers

Broth:

10 cups of chicken stock (canned or carton is fine)

1 tsp chopped ginger

1 tsp. crushed garlic

1 Tbs. soy sauce

1 green onions, chopped diagonally for garnish

Dumplings:

Put all ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix until thoroughly combined.

Working on a flat work surface, lay out a few of the wontons. (Keep remaining wonton wrappers covered with plastic wrap.) Fill a small bowl partially with cool water and set aside. Using a teaspoon measure, place a heaping teaspoonful of the meat filling in the center of each wonton. Using your fingers or brush, lightly wet the edges of the wonton. Bring 2 opposite corners of the wonton together to form a triangle and enclose the filling, pressing edges firmly around the mound of filling to eliminate any air pockets and seal. Assemble the remaining wontons in the same manner. When the wontons are all assembled, set aside.
Soup:

In a sauce pan or soup pot bring stock, soy sauce, garlic and ginger to boil. Carefully drop wontons into soup and stir to separate them. After dumpling come to surface, simmer additional 5 minutes and serve with chopped green onions.

Ready for assembly.

Pres two oposing corners together...

and press around filling to squeeze out air.

Ready for a soup.

Liver Dumpling Soup

Yes, another dumpling recipe. This comfort soup is one of our favorite soups to go to when it is miserable outside. It is too bad that many people would never give a second look at anything that has a liver in it. I use very fresh calf or baby beef liver for these dumplings and you can’t detect any liver taste or smell at all. As is the case with most soups you can easily control how substantial the soup is just by modifying ratio of stock to solids, in this case number and size of dumplings and amount of egg noodles and vegetables.

For dumplings:

Baby beef or Calf liver, 1 slice

1 egg, beaten

1/4 cup milk

1/2 tsp. white pepper

1 tsp. salt

Garlic, 2 cloves, chopped

1/2 tsp. marjoram

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 cup bread crumbs mixed with 1 Tbs. flour/

Breadcrumbs, as required

Soup:

8 cups beef or chicken stock, carton or can is fine

1 large carrot

1/2 medium onion

1 stalk celery, all finely chopped

Marjoram

Garlic, finely chopped

Fine egg noodles
Parsley

Remove all traces of membrane on liver, roughly chop and then run through grinder or food processor to make a coarse paste. Remove to mixing bowl and add beaten egg, milk, salt, pepper, baking powder and marjoram and mix till well combined. You will now have fairly thin batter. Add 1/2 cup of bread crumbs with flour, mix well and let it rest for 10 minutes or so for bread crumbs to absorb moisture from liver mixture. Remix and add adjust with more bread crumbs or milk until you can form a ball. Form walnut size balls and set aside.
To make soup, pour stock  into a soup pot, drop in all chopped vegetables and bring to boil. Cook for 5 minutes, lower heat to simmer and drop in all liver dumplings, being careful not to splash hot stock. Gently lift dumplings with spatula from bottom so they don’t stick. When all of them are floating on top, cover and simmer for 5 minutes. Add fine noodles and stir to prevent noodles from sticking together. Cook additional 5 minutes, add marjoram, taste and  adjust seasoning. Serve with chopped parsley sprinkled on top.

Potato Dumplings - Chlupaté knedlíky (Czech)

(Chlupaté knedlíky) Czech

Potato dumplings are somewhat similar to Gnocchi in that main ingredients are potato, flour and egg except these dumplings are made either with grated raw potatoes entirely or cooked and raw combined. Also, some use only flour as a binder while others use only farina (cream of wheat), then there are recipes that use both in all sorts of proportions. There are literally hundreds of recipes in Czech Republic for potato dumplings. Every region, city, village and family has their own. Actually, I think that same is true about any peasant dish in any culture. Since I’ve been making gnocchi for a while now and am comfortable with potato based dough I came up with my own version.

1 raw Russet potato, peeled and grated fine

1 Russet potato, “baked” in microwave (see Gnocchi recipe)

1 egg, beaten

1/3 c. farina (cream of wheat)

1/3 c. flour

1 tsp. baking powder

Salt and white pepper to taste

Peel and rice cooked potato in food mill. You can grate cooked potato using box grater or, to be more rustic put it in heavy plastic bag and smash it with heavy frying pan J.

Mix raw and cooked potatoes together with the beaten egg. Sift together farina, flour, salt, pepper and baking powder and fold in potato mixture. The dough should be stiff enough to form a small ball.

Bring salted water in a large pot to roiling boil. With soup spoon form balls little smaller then golf ball. When all dumplings are ready drop them gently into boiling water. Dumplings should loosely cover the bottom in one layer. When water comes back to boil lower the temperature to gentle boil. Release dumplings that stuck to bottom of a pot and boil for 15 minutes.

When done, remove with slotted spoon to preheated frying pan with some bacon fat or lard and coat lightly.

Sprinkle with dry toasted bread crumbs and serve.

Potato dumplings are traditionally served with sauerkraut and smoked meat.

Release dumplings that stuck to bottom

Once on surface boil for 15 minutes.

Drain and fry in bacon fat.

Seared Duck Breast, Red Cabbage & Dumplings

This is West Europe/East Europe fusion food. If there is such a thing, of course. I do not think that seared duck breast was on East European grandparent’s menu and dumplings on West Europe’s menu but to me it was so logical to combine the two. And it does work! The breasts were done by a cold pan method that is so effective. I don’t know what culinary genius was first to use this fool proof method but I know that this is the best way to cook a duck breast. The dumplings were already done and red cabbage was just heated so it was relatively fast and pain free meal.

Now it goes in 400 °F oven for another 5 minutes.

Oh, so good! And of course, Pilsner Urquell, the true and only original pilsner is perfect with this meal!

Bread Dumplings

Dumplings served with pork roast and sauerkraut.

To Czechs and Slovaks, bread dumpling is what pasta is to Italians and rice to whole Asia. It is almost a daily staple served with any food that has a sauce. Basically, it is just yeast bread with stale bread cubes mixed in. The “bread” in the name refers to these bread cubes. There are two ways to make them light and spongy: yeast and double acting baking powder. Since I have never made them with baking powder I will stick to the more traditional yeast dough.

I should mention that you will need fairly large pot to boil them. I use my deep stainless steel 9”x14” oval roasting pan, just a perfect size to boil 2 dumplings.

You can use regular enameled steel roasting pan, of course. Also, I would recommend to boil only one dumpling at the time since they have to be cut in half as soon as they are removed from the water and pierced with long bamboo skewer to release steam.

3 ½ cups flour - all purpose

sugar (pinch)

1 tsp. salt

1 Tbs. Instant yeast

1-1/2 cup day old bread, cut into 1/2” cubes

1 cup scalded milk (microwave for 1-1/2 min.)

2 beaten eggs

1/2 t. baking powder

1. Microwave milk with pinch of sugar and let cool.

2. Beat eggs and add to cool milk.

3. Mix flour with milk & egg mixture for ½ minute then add yeast.

4. Knead in mixer till sides of bowl are clean.

5. Place on work table and add bread cubes. Knead by hand till smooth and elastic.

6. Divide into two equal parts, roll into an oblong shape and place on large tea towel sprinkled with flour to prevent sticking. Cover with another towel and let raise till double in volume.

7. Lift the dumpling carefully with the bottom tea towel and gently lower into a large pot of boiling salted water. Be careful not to collapse the raised dough.

8. Boil for 13 minutes on one side then turn and boil for additional 10 minutes.

9. Remove from boiling water and immediately cut in half and pierce in several places with skewer to release steam. Place on a baking sheet or plate with cut side down and cover with towel till ready to use. To serve, cut slices about 1/2” thick. The halves of dumplings freeze very well. To use frozen dumplings, just let them thaw, slice and steam for few minutes.

I have roasting rack with wire loop at each end to lower and remove the dumplings. The rack came with the pan so it is a perfect fit.

Pork Roast, Wine Sauerkraut and Dumplings (Czech)

This is a King of Czech Sunday dinners. Without doubt, only competition is Svíčková, loosely translated as “Roasted beef tenderloin with root vegetable and sour cream sauce” which is quite complex to prepare. Pork roast is so simple: just rub a pork butt, preferably with skin on, with mixture of kosher salt, crushed garlic (I like a lot of it) and caraway seeds, place in roasting pan, pour about ½ cup of water in a pan, cover and place into 375°F preheated oven for ½ hour then lower temperature to 325°F and roast, still covered, for 2 hours turning and basting once halfway through. Increase temp to 375°F, remove cover and roast another ½ hour or till meat is golden and skin is crisp. It is traditionally served with hot sauerkraut and bread dumplings.

Note: Notice the perfectly roasted and crunchy skin at top of plate! Is it ever good!

The King of Czech Sunday dinners is ready for plating with no garnish or just bare minimum.

Paprika Chicken (Paprikás Csirke)

Beside Hungarian Beef Goulash this must be best known Hungarian meal. It is just too bad that I can’t have it more often because it is so obscenely rich. And because of that, is it ever tasty! Original recipe calls for whole chicken cut up. I use chicken thighs that I consider the very best part of the bird, there is so much flavor and it can be cooked in so many ways from soup through BBQ to slow stewing. Paprika Chicken is just that, a stew. It can be served with noodles, rice or potatoes but back in Czech Republic we always had bread dumplings. They really soak in that wonderful rich sauce!

Lets get down to business.

To serve 2 with leftovers J.

4 large chicken thighs, chopped in half (8 pieces)

3 T. lard or veggie oil

1 large onion, finely chopped

4 cloves of garlic (or more if you are like me)

2 or 3 T. sweet Hungarian paprika

1T. hot Hungarian paprika

1-1/2 cup chicken stock (canned is fine, I use it)

1-1/2 cup sour cream (stay away from light stuff, light sour cream is an oxymoron)

2 T. flour

Preheat oven to 300 °F.

Pat the chicken pieces dry with paper towels and salt and pepper generously (I always brine my chicken so I skip the salting).

In a Dutch oven heat the lard or oil until light haze forms over it. Add the chicken pieces skin side down and shallow fry them till golden brown, about 3 minutes.

Turn them over and cook for another 3 minutes.

Remove to a bowl and pour off all the fat, leaving only a thin film.

Lower the burner to medium heat and add onions and garlic and sauté until lightly colored.

Remove from heat and mix in sweet and hot paprika until the onions are well coated.

Return to heat and add chicken stock and bring to boil. Return pieces to pot, cover and place on middle shelf in oven. After one hour the chicken should be fall-off-the-bone tender. Remove from oven.

Remove the chicken to the same bowl as before and skim all fat from surface of the pot. (I use hot spoon and then strips of paper towels to really remove all the fat. I mean, we’ll be adding quite a bit of fresh fat in form of sour cream in next step.)

In a mixing bowl with wire whisk mix the sour cream and flour until smooth and then add about a cup of hot sauce into sour cream to temper it.

Stir the mixture back into pot, return the chicken with all accumulated juices to the pot and bring it slowly to simmer. Do not boil or the sauce will separate! After 3 minutes remove from heat and serve.

Bread dumplings are basically bread dough loaves that are boiled. They are very soft and soak up sauces like a sponge. It is almost daily staple at Czech table just like pasta is at Italian table.