Potato Dumplings Filled with Smoked Meat and Sauerkraut

Filled potato dumplings are quite popular meal in Czech Republic, and it’s very easy to prepare. The most common filling is smoked meat, which can be enriched with bacon. Interesting alternative can be pork scratching. Potatoes for  dough can be boiled a day before. But once you make the dough, try to work with it immediately. In time it begins to thin and then it would tear up and be sticky.

Ingredients

  • 1 kg of potatoes
  • 500 g of fine wheat flour
  • 2 eggs
  • tbs of salt
  • 500 g of smoked meat
  • 1 onion for topping

Sauerkraut

 

  • 1 kg of sauerkraut
  • 1 onion
  • salt, caraway
  • 1 spoon of flour
  • lard or oil

Directions

  1. Boil whole unpeeled potatoes. Let cool off, then peel them and grate finely. Add eggs, flour and salt and knead into dough.
  2. Roll into 0,5 cm thick layer and cut to squares of 10 cm x 10 cm.
  3. Put chopped  smoked meat on every square. You can season them with salt and pepper. Then put the corners together and make into a round dumpling.
  4. Boil in steam for 25 minutes. Pinch with skewer after boiling and butter up with lard or oil. Sauerkraut
  5. Fry chopped onion on lard and add sauerkraut with pickle. Season with caraway and salt. Sauté for 15 – 20 minutes. If the sauerkraut is too sour you can sweeten it with sugar. At the end thicken  with flour mixed with a little water.
  6. Fry chopped onion on lard for final garnishing.




Roasted Goose with White and Red Cabbage and Dumplings

Once upon a time

there was a cute town

and it’s people knew

how to have some fun

when st. Martin’s day

finally has come.

 

In a town surrounded by Beskydy’s mountains, in the town where I grew up we celebrate St. Martin’s day every year. He’s the patron of the town.

Anyway, eating roasted goose and drinking St. Martin’s wine is whole republic tradition. But for us it means whole weekend ritual starting on Friday with something like outdoor alcoholic special drinks market and ending on Sunday with light headache and completely full stomach. But calm down, it’s not just about drinking and eating. Mainly it’s about meeting friends, spending time with family. Maybe this spirit is common for whole nation during St. Martin’s day, but mostly for other people it’s about eating something they don’t usually eat and drinking special occasions kinds of wine.

But for us it’s about meeting on the main and only square, talking to friends you haven’t seen for a long time, trying to walk through the crowd and walking from stall to stall… and drinking vařonka, hot wine and warm mead.

Vařonka is north Moravian history leftover. But it’s awesome. You know – very cold winters, tough work, no money. People needed to warm up somehow. Vařonka is combination of caramel, water, spices like clove, cinnamon (it’s possible to use badian (star anise) or allspice) and a shot of booze for a cup. You may use vodka, but we use režná (it’s made from anise, it has about 35% of alcohol) or rum. In the end you put to the cup just a little bit of butter and perhaps slice of lemon or orange for decoration. It’s very sweet. And you get drunk very fast. There is also a competition who made the best vařonka. And competitors really care about it because it is a big pride to win and they will be well known to whole town. In the end of the evening there is lot of drunk people. But they are still capable to get up early next morning so they can see their patron.

On Saturday square looks like a medieval market with different kinds of food, drink and handmade stuff.

And this day is about best roasted goose competition and St. Martin’s coming. He is supposed to ride on a white horse which means snow. So he’s supposed to bring snow and winter and cover the country with snowy blanket and let it rest to the spring. For the last few years it’s not working. No snow. Or more likely no snow in November. Maybe we are going to be content just with movember. Tom0rrow I’m going to buy some moustache. I’ll be very pretty girl.

Maybe I could compare our roasted goose and our st. Martin’s celebration to thanksgiving turkey or something like that. When it’s really about tradition you just want to be with your closest. This year I loved making goose (ok, it wasn’t really a goose, but it wasn’t a duck, it was a hybrid, something in between – gooseduck. Meat is not so dry as goose use to have and it’s not so tough as duck use to have, it’s tender and juicy) because it was whole family cooperation. My father made goose, my mother made white Czech cabbage and I made savory red cabbage and awesome butter dumplings. And together – lovely tender meat, tasty moist dumplings and bittersweet combination of cabbages – together it was heaven.

So bellow it’s not going to be just one of the meals recipe but recipe for the whole course.

Of course you can make roasted goose on orange and honey or plums, make savory both white and red cabbage or make red cabbage with apples and cranberries and it’s going to be great. But let it be simple and you will know for 100% it’s going to be the best.

Roasted Goose

Ingredients

  • 1 goose without giblets
  • bunch of celery leaves
  • 4 sprig of fresh rosemary
  • 2 onions, finely diced
  • 5 garlic cloves, finely sliced
  • salt, pepper, generous amount of whole caraway

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Rinse goose inside and out with cold running water, and pat it dry with paper towels.
  2. With the point of the knife make carefully few cuts to the skin of the goose. Generously sprinkle the cavity with salt, pepper and caraway and insert most of the celery leaves and half of the rosemary sprigs (instead of celery you may use parsley).
  3. From both sides also sprinkle the goose with salt, pepper and caraway. Put the goose into large roast pan breast side down, pour there about a cup of water and roast it covered for about 2 or 3 hours, when it’s fine and crispy.
  4. Then turn around breast side up. Sprinkle goose with salt and caraway again (don’t be afraid to use caraway, even a whole package for the goose, it makes the taste) and bake covered. Now it’s good during the two or three hours long baking to take the goose out of the oven and pour some juice over the breast. Maybe 3 times during baking.

    When the skin is brown and crispy, put to the pan chopped onion, sliced garlic and the rest of leaves and rosemary.

I know, it takes time but it definitely worth it. And you have time to do rest of it.

Cabbage

The most complicated thing is the Czech cabbage. You can cook this cabbage day ahead so it “sits” and tastes even better. I love the smell when my mother cooks it, it simply smell delicious.

Ingredients

  • 1 medium head white cabbage (about 2 and half pounds), chopped
  • water
  • salt
  • 1/2 tsp whole caraway
  • 1 tbsp pork or goose fat (grease one)
  • 1 big onion finely diced
  • 1 not even full tbsp of all purpose flour
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • 1 tsp white vinegar
  • generous amount of fresh ground pepper

Directions

  1. Put the cabbage into the pot and press it then pour in the water so the cabbage is just slightly covered and braise it so it’s just “al dente”.
  2. It’s not supposed to be completely cooked. It’s hard to tell how long it takes because it depends on how fresh cabbage is. So it may take 10 minutes but also half an hour. So watch it. Then pour off half of the water of the pot but keep it aside.
  3. In pan, add fat. When it’s hot add onion and sauté until turned slightly brown and add flour.
  4. Now stir with wooden spoon. It’s something like the starter for béchamel.
  5. Add the mix to the pot with cabbage. If the cabbage is too thick pour in some of cabbage broth. It depends just on you how thick you want to have it.
  6. Stirring boil the cabbage for the last ten minutes so it doesn’t burn. Finally add sugar and vinegar and fresh ground pepper.

Ingredients

  • about 2 and half pound savory red cabbage, the best you can buy (when you buy already made it saves time)
  • about a cup of goose juice from the goose roasting in your oven or goose that finished roasting in your oven – juice and fat, but it doesn’t have to be a full cup
  • 1 medium onion, finely diced
  • fresh ground pepper

Directions

  1. Add the juice into the pot and heat.
  2. When it’s hot add onion and sauté until golden brown.
  3. Next add the cabbage and let it boil until almost all liquid is gone.
  4. Finally add pepper.

Dumplings

And finally… the best dumplings I’ve ever ate. For now, of course. They are moist, with taste of butter and supper easy to make.

hrnickove_knedliky

Ingredients

  • about 14 oz white toast bread, cubed
  • 3 and half oz warm butter
  • 2 and half cups milk
  • 4 eggs
  • 5 and half oz plain whole-wheat flour
  • bunch of chopped parsley
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 8 cups greased with butter
  • bit pot with a lid for

Directions

  1. Add the water into the pot and boil.
  2. When you put all the cups to the pot water should reach an inch under the top of the cups.
  3. Mix the cubed bread with all ingredients and let it absorb the liquid.
  4. Then divide it into the greased cups.
  5. Put cups into the pot, cover with a lid and cook for about 45 minutes.

 




Apricot Filled Curd Cheese Dumplings

Sweet fruit dumplings (ovocné knedlíky) are unreservedly linked to summer days. But as always there are many ways how to cook this sweet recipe. You can prepare fruit dumplings from leavened dough, curd cheese or potato dough. In this recipe we use curd cheese dough. Dumplings are filled with various fruits e.g. apricots, blueberries, strawberries, plums, whatever you like. After that dumplings are cooked in boiling water and served in several ways. For example sprinkled with grated curd cheese, melted butter and sugared or with sugar, cocoa, melted butter and whipped cream. This recipe for curd cheese apricot dumplings is really quick and delicious.

Ingredients

  • 200g of fine wheat flour (or 100g of semolina and 100g of fine wheat flour)
  • 250g of curd cheese
  • 100g of butter
  • egg
  • 40g of sugar
  • icing sugar
  • apricots (or any other fruit you like)
  • blueberries
  • sour cream
  • pinch of salt

Directions

  1. Put egg, sugar, melted butter and curd cheese to the bowl. Whisk it all together, so long until the mixture is smooth.
  2. Then you can add flour and stir it again so long until the smooth dough.
  3. Roll the dough and divide it into smaller parts. Every part spread by your fingers, put pitted apricot into the middle (you can put sugar into the apricot) and wrap it into the dumpling.
  4. Cook it in boiling salted water for 6-8 minutes.
  5. Serve dusted with icing sugar, melted butter, sour cream and fruit e.g. blueberries.

 




Pork Roast with Dumplings and Sauerkraut

Pork roast with dumplings and sauerkraut is absolute classic of Czech food and is considered Czech national meal. The title “Vepřo knedlo zelo” says everything about main items on plate. However there can be few alterations, because one can prepare bread dumplings as well as potato dumplings. Other dilemma can arise when it comes to sauerkraut, because someone might prefer from red cabbage. In this recipe you’ll find potato dumplings since recipe for bread dumplings is already posted.

Ingredients

Pork roast

  • 1 kg of pork shoulder roast
  • salt, pepper, caraway
  • 3–4 cloves of garlic
  • 2 onions
  • 2 spoons of lard

Potato dumplings

  • 1 kg of potatoes
  • salt
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 spoon of milk
  • circa 400g of flour
  • 3 spoons of farina

Sauerkraut

  • 500 g of sauerkraut
  • 1-2 onions
  • 100g of bacon
  • salt, caraway
  • teaspoon of sugar
  • 1 raw potato

Directions

Pork roast

  1. Chop onion in baking pan.
  2. Clean meat and put on onion. Then salt and pepper meat. Spread minced garlic and put caraway on meat.
  3. Add lard and baste with glass of water.
  4. Put in preheated oven 190°C (375°F) for about 2 hours. Baste if necessary.

Potato dumplings

  1. Boil unpeeled potatoes and then let them to cool off.
  2. Peel and grate potatoes and put in bowl and season with salt.
  3. Whisk egg with spoon of milk, add in bowl and mix together with potatoes.
  4. Put on rolling board and gradually thicken with flour and farina until dough is not sticky.
  5. Divide dough in several parts and knead cylinder loaves.
  6. Boil in salted water for 20 minutes.

Saurkraut

  1. Take sauerkraut from brine, let drain and chop.
  2. Chop onion and stir-fry on oil or lard. Add cutted bacon.
  3.  Add sauerkraut and after 10 minutes season with salt, sugar and caraway.
  4. At last thicken with grated potato.




Czech Bread Dumplings

If there’s any side dish Czechs love, it’s most definitely dumplings. Bread dumplings go perfectly with traditional Czech sauces like tomato sauce, dill sauce, svíčková (cream sauce) and of course goulash.

Ingredients

  • 500ml of milk
  • 1kg of fine wheat flour
  • 2 eggs
  • 20g of yeast
  • 20g salt
  • 2-3 old rolls
  • teaspoon of sugar

Directions

  1. Warm the milk to be tepid but not hot.
  2. Pour 100ml of milk into bowl, add crumbled yeast and sugar. Let leaven rest in warm place.
  3. Cut rolls into small cubes.
  4. Sift flour into clean bowl and mix with salt. Add eggs, warm milk and leaven (point 2).
  5. Knead thoroughly and at last blend in rolls.
  6. Cover bowl with cloth and let rise for 1 hour in warm place.
  7. After that devide dough into 3 or 4 parts. Knead again and form into long shaped rolls.
  8. Put in boiling water for about 20 minutes.
  9. Pierce with skewer to know they’re cooked.