Tag Archives: potatoes

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.

Vegetables and Salads

Potato Paprikash (Paprikás Borgonya)

Paprika is sweet and/or pungent dried red pepper and a staple in the Hungarian kitchen. Paprikash is made by stewing your ingredients in a thick, paprika-based gravy-like base.

paprika red pepper

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

Ingredients for Potato Paprikash

  • 1-1/2 kilos (3-1/4 lbs) potatoes
  • 4 oz bacon or 3 oz lard
  • 1 onion, finely chopped
  • 2 or 3 tomatoes, chopped
  • 1 green pepper, sliced
  • 1 t paprika
  • Salt and pepper to taste

In frying pan, cook bacon or lard, add finely chopped onion, and brown till golden. Add chopped tomatoes, green pepper rings, and paprika. Cook until pepper is well wilted.

Peel and quarter the potatoes. Add the bacon/tomato/pepper mixture, barely cover with water, and simmer until tender and liquid is reduced to a thick gravy. Season to taste with salt and pepper.


Meatless Main Dishes

Basque Spinach

  • 1-1/3 cups grated Swiss cheese
  • 3 cups spinach braised in stock
  • 1 lb. potatoes
  • 1 T anchovy paste mixed with 4 tbsp. softened butter and 1/8 tsp. pepper
  • 3 T dried bread crumbs
  • 2 T melted butter

Mix 1/2 cup cheese with spinach. Peel potatoes and cut into 1/8″ thick slices. Boil in salted water 5-6 minutes. Drain. Spread half of the potatoes in bottom of baking dish, cover with 1/2 of anchovy mix. Spread half of the spinach over the potatoes. Repeat layers. Spread 1/3 cup grated cheese mixed with bread crumbs over top and pour on melted butter. Bake 30 minutes at 375ºF until browned.

Basque Spinach
The anchovies make the difference.
Vegetables and Salads

Potatoes Gratin

  • 1 cup Swiss cheese, grated
  • 1/2 to 1 cup consomme
  • 1/8 lb. butter
  • 4 large potatoes

Peel and slice potatoes. Add salt. pepper, and a pinch ot nutmeg, Butter a baking dish. Put in 1 layer of potatoes, cover with half the cheese, add another layer of potatoes, and cover with remaining cheese. Pour over this the consomme. and sprinkle with lumps of butter. Place in 375°F oven until done, with the consomme absorbed. Servings: 4

Soups and Stews

Cabbage and Potato Soup

  • 1 medium onion, minced
  • 2 T butter
  • 3 cups shredded cabbage
  • 1/4 cup chopped cabbage
  • 3 cups water
  • 1 t salt
  • 2 cups diced potato
  • 8 oz. medium cream
  • Minced parsley
  • Dash of paprika

Cook onion slowly in butter until golden. Add cabbage, water, salt, and potato. Cook until tender (15-20 minutes). Add cream and reheat, but do not boil. Serve sprinkled with minced parsley and a dash of paprika.  Servings: 6

Breads and Pancakes

Spudnuts

Spudnuts are potato-based doughnuts–heavier and more substantial than regular raised doughnuts.

  • 2 pkg. yeast
  • 1 cup lukewarm potato water
  • 2 t sugar
  • 4 cups scalded milk
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2  salt
  • 5 eggs, beaten
  • 2 cups freshly mashed potatoes
  • 15 cups flour, approximately
  • 1 cup shortening, melted

Dissolve yeast in potato water with 2 t sugar. Let stand 10 minutes. Add yeast to cooled milk, then sugar, shortening, salt, potatoes, eggs, and 1 t nutmeg if desired. Stir well. Add flour to make a very soft dough.

Let rise to double. Punch and let rise again. Roll on floured board to 1/2″ thickness. Cut into doughnuts. Place on floured paper and let rise till doubled.

Fry in deep fat placing underside up. Dip while hot in following glaze: Simmer 3 cups sugar, 3/4 cup butter and 1 cup hot water for 5 minutes. Add 2 t vanilla. Keep over hot water to avoid granulating.

Servings: 8 to 10 dozen

Soups and Stews

Borscht, Doukhobor Style

A thick, very rich version of Russian beet soup melded with potatoes and other vegetables, butter, and cream..

For years, various members of the family have lived in an area of British Columbia, Canada, into which many Doukhobors (a sect of Christian Russians who practice  what is called “radical pacifism”) settled after emigrating to Canada from Russia in the early 1900s to escape persecution. One of the mainstays of the Doukhobour diet, which is vegetarian, is their particular style of borscht, or beet soup, which is thick with potato starch and heavily laden with butter and cream. It is a full-course meal in itself.

  • 1-1/2 cups runny mashed potatoes
  • 1/2 medium cabbage, shredded
  • 1 beet, diced
  • 1 large carrot, diced
  • 1 green pepper, chopped
  • 1/2 lb. butter
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 1 clove garlic
  • 1 can tomatoes
  • 1 t basil
  • salt and dill to taste
  • water as needed
  • 1/2 to 1 cup whipping cream

Prepare the mashed potatoes, reserving the water in which the potatoes were cooked. Set the mashed potatoes aside. Add 3/4 of the cabbage, the diced beet, carrot, and green pepper to the hot potato water in a large soup pot and cook for 15 minutes.

Melt the butter in a skillet. Add the chopped onion and garlic and stir until transparent, and then add the rest of the cabbage. Fry to brown slightly.

Toss the fried cabbage in with the other vegetables in the potato broth. Empty the tomatoes into the skillet and add the basil. Heat well and throw into the soup pot. Add water as needed and continue simmering. Add the mashed potatoes and dill. Stir in cream (use as much as your taste buds dictate and your conscience will allow) and heat but do not boil. Season.

Serves 8.

Cats, by Rayna, Dec 2008


Soups and Stews

Potato Soup

  • 4 potatoes, cubed
  • 4 stalks celery, chopped
  • 1 onion, sliced
  • water as needed
  • 4 cups milk
  • 8 slices bacon, crisp, crumbled
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 2 T parsley

Cover potatoes, celery and onion with water. Cook till tender. Add milk. Stir in bacon. Season. Serve with parsley. Servings: 4