Saturday, September 4, 2010

Recipe: Knedle

Knedle are traditional potato-dough dumplings, usually filled with an entire plum.  They are incredibly filling and can serve both as a dessert and as a dinner (being so filling.)  They are actually really easy to make and popular with kids and adults alike.

Ingredients:
3 lb of potatoes
2 cups of flour
1 egg
3 pounds of plums
Sugar
Pinch of salt

Peel and boil the potatoes, then drain well.  In a large pot, start boiling some water.  In a bowl, mash the potatoes, and mix in flour, salt, and egg.  If the dough is too sticky, add more flour until a nice consistency is reached.  Pit the plums by butterflying them (slice one side pole-to-pole) and taking out the stone.  Fill the plums' centers with a teaspoon of sugar (sugar cubes are great for this), close them, then wrap the plums in dough.  Drop the knedle into the boiling water and cook until they float.  Remove with a slotted spoon.

You can serve the knedle as they are, or fry them in a slight bit of oil (not unlike pierogi).  You can also serve them in a sweet cream sauce.
In the holiday season, feel free to add a pinch of some spices to the dough (such as cinnamon or nutmeg.)  Knedle keep well when they are frozen, so prepare them when plums are in season, then freeze.  You can serve them all winter and spring, just drop the frozen balls into boiling water.

Freshly-made knedle.

9 comments:

ReAcT said...

this looks so good!

PolishMeKnob said...

Try making them. They're really easy and are pretty good. Shit's pretty cash.

Dr. Detroit said...

Sweet cream sauce that's where it's at. Śmietana + sugar, that's what I was brought up on. The same concoction was used as a dressing for the Boston lettuce that was (is ?) ubiquitous in Poland in the 80's. Sounds weird, but it tasted OK.

PolishMeKnob said...

The sweet-cream sauce is definitely the way to go. I ate these with sugar-Turkish yogurt.

Boston lettuce? Yeah (bed lettuce is also what it's called) is still very popular.
And yes, it is weïrd to put that sauce on lettuce.

The Alaskan Reviewer said...

this sounds excellent. i might try with some dates instead of plums

Dr. Detroit said...

The allure of the knedle (or anything else sweet with plums) is the combination of sweetness of the cream and the tartness of the plum. Dates are just straightforwardly sweet, so you won't get the same effect.

rancour said...

sounds delicious, definitely something new worth trying

Anonymous said...

My Mom used potatoes that had been boiled with skins on and then put through a ricer. Flour, salt and egg were added to make the dough. The filled dumplings were dropped in boiling water. They were then rolled in a mixture of melted butter, sugar and cinnamon.

Anonymous said...

My Mom always sauteed them in buttered, sugared breadcrumbs...