Category Archives: Noodles and Dumplings

There’s something about noodles and dumplings… swimming in sauces and gravies… that is irresistible.

Noodles and Dumplings

Plum Dumplings

Ovocné Knedlíky

  • 1-1/4 T butter
  • 4 oz. cottage cheese
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/4 cup milk
  • 1-3/4 cups flour
  • 12 fresh plums, halved and pitted
  • Boiling salted water
  • 3 T melted butter
  • 6 T sugar

Cream butter, cottage cheese, egg yolk and salt; add milk. Stir in flour. Stir until dough leaves side of bowl and is not sticky. Cover and set aside for 30 minutes. Roll dough on floured board into a rectangle about 9 x 12″ and 1/4″ thick. Place a plum half in center and wrap dough around it into a round ball. Drop into boiling salted water. Cover and cook for 8 mins.; remove and drain. Sprinkle with melted butter and sugar.

Plum dumplings
A cat by Kati, satisfied, perhaps, at having just eaten a plum dumpling.
Noodles and Dumplings

Potato Dumplings

Potato Dumplings are easy to make, and they can be plopped into clear soups or served smothered in savory gravies and sauces.

Dumplings in general are pieces of dough, usually small and variously shaped, sometimes filled with sweet or savory fillings, that are boiled, simmered, steamed, or fried. Dumplings are traditional in cuisines all over the world, but our family’s dumplings tend toward the heavier Eastern European styles.

  • 4 cups cold mashed potatoes
  • 3 cups flour
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 egg, slightly beaten

Mix ingredients together.

Form into a roll and cut into 2″ lengths. Form each piece into a ball. Drop into rapidly boiling water or broth and cook for 15 minutes.

Dumplings

Noodles and Dumplings

Houskove knedliky

Bread dumplings

  • 10 slices of white bread without crusts
  • 5 T butter
  • 4 T minced onion
  • 3/4 cup flour
  • 1/3 cup milk
  • 1/4 cup crisp bacon, crumbled
  • 3 tbsp minced parsley
  • Salt & pepper
  • 1/8 t nutmeg

Cube bread. Brown in 4 tbsp butter. Put into a bowl. Saute onions in 1 tbsp butter. Place in bowl and add flour, bacon, parsley, salt, pepper and nutmeg. Moisten with milk. Knead to form a soft dough. Fold in cubed bread. Shape dough into 6-7″ long x 2″ wide rolls. In a 9″ pan, simmer enough salted water to cover rolls. Place rolls in water. Cover and simmer 25 mins. Turn rolls once. Drain on paper towels and slice 3/4″ thick with a string.

Noodles and Dumplings

Dumplings filled with cottage cheese

Bryndzove pirohy

  • 1-1/4 lb boiled potatoes
  • 1/2 lb flour
  • 1 egg
  • bacon
  • salt
  • sour cream for serving

Filling:

  • 1/2 lb cottage cheese
  • 2/3 cup grated boiled potatoes
  • chopped dill
  • 1 egg
  • salt

Pirohy: Peel the boiled potatoes, grate them and add flour, egg and salt. Make a dough, and roll it out into a thin round shape on a baking-board. Carve out the circles with form or with water glass, put on it cottage cheese filling, fold the dough over, press margins well, and boil in salted bubbling hot water. When they emerge on the surface, boil a little more and take out. Spread with fried bacon and serve with sour cream or yoghurt.

Filling: Mix cottage cheese with boiled, cooled and grated potatoes, add cut dill, egg, and a bit of sour cream. Mix well. The mixture must be quite thick.

Noodles and Dumplings

Cabbage Noodles

Hungarian Cabbage Noodles

  • 1 head white cabbage, finely grated
  • Oil or lard*
  • Salt (lots)
  • Pepper (lots)
  • 1 lb. bow or spiral noodles

CEJXJEHPlace grated cabbage in a large bowl and sprinkle liberally with salt. Allow to sit for an hour or two. Squeeze out excess water.

In large, heavy frying pan, heat oil and add cabbage. Cook over moderate heat, stirring, until cabbage is well browned, adding more oil as needed. Some people sprinkle on a teaspoon or so of sugar to help brown the cabbage without actually sweetening it. Season with extra salt and pepper to taste.

Cook noodles, toss together with cabbage and serve in liberal quantities.

Many recipes for Hungarian Cabbage and Noodles also call for a small, finely chopped onion to be fried with the cabbage. I haven’t tried that version but I have added one small, crushed garlic clove and just a pinch of crushed, dried basil just before tossing the cabbage together with the noodles, and it’s one of my favorite taste treats.

* The recipe calls for lots of lard or oil, and the cabbage seems to sop up whatever grease you throw at it. However, I have several times used only the minimum of oil (avocado oil or any other mild, unrefined vegetable oil will work) to keep the cabbage from sticking and burning, and it has come out fine, albeit drier than the traditional version. I’ve used grated cabbage and coarsely shredded cabbage, and the coarser cabbage tends to hold the moisture better. I’ve even used the dry cabbage pulp left over from making cabbage juice in my masticating juicer. It works, too, although, since the pulp is super fine, it is also much drier.

Noodles and Dumplings

Spatzle

Spatzle is one of the simplest types of noodles to make, basically a free-form cut or pressed egg dough dropped into boiling water. They just beg to be drowned in thick gravy.

  • 4 cups flour
  • 1 t salt
  • 4 large eggs
  • 1 cup milk
  • 1/2 cup water

Mix dry ingredients. Whisk together eggs, milk and water. Stir into dry ingredients. Beat with a wooden spoon, then let rest. Push through a spatzle maker (a metal pan with round holes in the bottom) or cut into salted boiling water.

Cook 8 minutes. Drain and place in bowl of cold water. Dry on paper towels and saute with butter.

Noodles and Dumplings

Poppy seed noodles

These are a sweet noodle. Sinfully. And with butter, too.

  • 8 oz. noodles
  • 2 tablespoons fat
  • 4 oz. ground poppy seeds
  • 4 oz. sugar

Cook the noodles according to instructions on the packet and drain. Mix with the melted fat. Stir the sugar and poppy-seeds together and sprinkle this mixture on to the hot noodles and serve.