Tag Archives: egg

Breads and Pancakes

Bagels

  • 4-1/2 cups unbleached flour
  • 3 T sugar
  • 5 t active dry yeast (2 pkgs.)
  • 1 T salt
  • 1 egg beaten with 1 tsp water

Combine 1-1/2 cups flour, sugar, yeast, salt. Stir in 1-1/2 cups lukewarm water, and with an electric mixer beat at high speed 3 mins. Stir in 2 more cups flour and knead for 5 mins. Add as much of the remaining flour as is necessary to make a smooth dough. Let rest, covered, 15 mins. Divide into 16 pieces, roll each into a 7″ roll, and form into rings, sealing ends with a bit of water. Put bagels on lightly floured sheets and let rest, covered, for 5 mins. In a large pot bring 6″ of water to a boil. Boil bagels, 4 at a time, turning several times, for 3 mins. each. Transfer to a towel to drain. Place bagels 2″ apart on backing sheets, brush with the egg wash, and bake in a preheated 375ºF over for 25-30 mins., or until golden. Makes 16 bagels.

Breads and Pancakes

Mom’s Banana Bread

A simple recipe that was always a favorite. It takes easily to conversion to a vegan version and is also delicious with a few chopped walnuts and/or raisins added.

  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 2 cups flour
  • 2 eggs
  • 3 ripe bananas
  • 1/4 cup milk, soured with 1 tsp vinegar

Cream sugar and butter. Add eggs and stir till smooth. Add flour and baking soda. Mash bananas and add, alternating with milk. Bake 1 hour at 350 F.

Vegan substitutions:

Use 1/3 cup coconut oil instead of the butter, almond milk instead of regular milk, and replace the eggs with 1 T finely ground flax seed and 3 T of water per egg (soak the flax seed in water for a few minutes until thickened before adding to the recipe).

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

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.

Meat and Poultry

Veal Paprikash

A Hungarian veal stew seasoned with paprika, often served with dumplings but can also be ladled over noodles, potatoes, or rice.

  • 1-1/2 lb veal, cubed
  • 1 large onion, finely chopped
  • 2 T paprika
  • 1 T salt
  • 1 large green pepper, cubed
  • 1 large tomato, chopped

For dumplings:

  • 1-1/2 cups flour
  • 1 egg
  • 1/4 tsp salt

Fry onion until golden. Add paprika, stir to release aroma and then add a little water. Cook until the water has boiled off, add the meat and salt, cover, and cook over a low flame, stirring often. As the liquid boils off, continue to add a little water at a time, allowing the meat to brown and a thick gravy to form.

When the meat is almost tender, add the tomato and the green pepper. Continue simmering until the meat is tender.

For the dumplings, mix the flour with salt and egg and add just enough water to form a stiff dough. Pinch out small pieces of dough and leave in a floured bowl. Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil and throw in the dumplings. Cook for about 10 minutes. Drain and serve hot with the veal.

Serves 4 to 6

Breads and Pancakes

Bran Muffins

A plain old and easy bran muffin recipe, great for breakfast or a mid-afternoon snack.

Wheat bran is high in dietary fiber and so helps to keep the body’s elimination system in good working order.

Bran muffin ingredients

  • 1 cup flour
  • 3 t baking powder
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1/2 t salt
  • 1 egg
  • 1 cup milk
  • 2 T melted butter
  • 1 cup wheat bran

Sift together flour, baking powder and sugar. Beat the egg and add milk, butter and bran. Let stand for 10 minutes. Add the flour and stir just to dampen. Fill greased muffin tins 2/3 full. Bake at 400 F for 25 minutes.

Vegan Bran Muffin Tweak

This recipe is easily made vegan by substituting 1 T flax + 3 T water for the egg (mix together and let sit for 5 minutes or so to thicken before adding to the recipe), 1 cup unsweetened almond or soy milk for the regular milk, and 2 tablespoons of coconut oil for the butter.

 

Bran muffins


Meat and Poultry

Mom’s Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

This recipe for cabbage rolls is the basic Eastern European version that we knew as kids: a savory melding of rice and ground meat rolled in cabbage leaves and smothered in thick tomato sauce. It was always served with sour cream.

Mom would make a whole turkey pan full of cabbage rolls, enough to feed the six of us and more for at least  two or three sittings. As the leftovers sat and aged in their sauce over the next few days, the taste intensified and filled out… I always preferred leftover cabbage rolls over freshly made ones.

There are endless variations of cabbage rolls. One Ukrainian version is pickled cabbage leaves (sauerkraut style) stuffed  with fried onions, ground meat, and buckwheat and baked in a meaty broth instead of tomato sauce. Similar cousins  are rice and lamb stuffed grape leaves in Middle Eastern cuisine.

Ingredients for Mom’s Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

  • 1 head of cabbage
  • 1 lb. mixed ground beef and ground pork (either half and half or slightly more beef than pork)
  • 1 finely minced onion
  • 1 cup cooked rice
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • 1-1/2 t salt
  • 1/4 t pepper
  • 1 large can tomato soup + 3 T ketchup*
  • 1 cup water
  • Sour cream for serving

Core cabbage. Place in large pot of boiling water with a splash of vinegar. Cook 5 minutes. Remove from heat, drain and let stand 10 to 15 minutes to cool. Sauté onion in a little butter. Mix together the ground beef, onion, rice, salt and pepper. Separate cabbage leaves. Shave off the ribs. Put a large spoonful of meat mix at the base of each leaf and roll up tightly. May fasten with toothpicks. Place in an oiled oven pan, nestling the rolls together so they won’t unroll. Mix together the tomato juice, catchup, and water. Pour over cabbage rolls. Bake, covered, at about 325 F for 1-1/2 hours.

These are best removed from the oven and let sit to settle and thicken the sauce a bit before serving. Place bowls of thick sour cream on the table, and mound a large tablespoonful of the cream on each cabbage roll before eating.

* Mom always swore by Aylmer’s tomato soup instead of tomato puree for making real Cabbage rolls., but it wasn’t always easy to find.

cabbage for cabbage rolls

Noodles and Dumplings

Hungarian Liver Dumplings

Májgombóc

Recipe from Az Ìnyesmester Szakácskônyve (The Expert’s Cookbook)

  • 6 oz veal, pork, or chicken livers
  • 1 T chopped onion
  • 1 T chopped parsley
  • Lard for cooking
  • 1/2 to 1 bread roll
  • 1 egg
  • breadcrumbs

Finely chop the liver and run through. Add onion and parsley. Saute in lard. Add ½ – 1 bread roll, softened in milk. Add 1 egg and a few more crumbs if necessary. Season with salt and pepper. Cook in water or broth.

Noodles and Dumplings

Pirogy

Pierogi, also known as Verenyki

Pierogies are a type of dumpling stuffed with cottage cheese and served with heaps of fried onions and sour cream.

Pierogies evoke in me a mild love/hate response. They were definitely part of our childhood gastronomical experience, and while I didn’t find them terribly exciting (rather greasy with the fried onions, actually), they seemed to provoke fierce enthusiasm in the rest of the family. How could I go against that flow?

So, for you Pierogy lovers everywhere, here is the recipe:

  • 2 cups flour
  • 1/2 t salt
  • 1 egg
  • Water
  • 1/2 lb cottage cheese (can be mixed with coarsely-mashed potatoes)
  • 2 T sour cream
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 1/4 t salt
  • Fried onions and extra sour cream (optional)

For the dumpling envelopes:

Sift flour and salt into bowl; make a depression in center and drop in egg. Moisten with water to make stiff dough. Knead until smooth. Cover and let stand 30 minutes. Divide dough in half and roll to 1/8″ thick. Cut into 2-1/2 to 3″ circles.

For the filling:

Mash cottage cheese (and mashed potatoes if using)  with 2 T sour cream, eggs and salt. Mix well.

Preparation:

Place 1 heaping teaspoonful of cheese on lower half of circle; moisten edge of top half with water and fold. Press edges together.

Drop into a large kettle of boiling water. Cook for 5-7 minutes, counted after water returns to boiling.

Serve with fried onions and sour cream. Some people like to brown the drained pierogies with the fried onions in a pan before serving.