Marillenknödel
My mother still keeps in touch with her high school classmates. They still go to the movies and fill up a whole row, like they used to do as teenagers. They go on weekends away together and rent a whole cabin, spend NYE together where everyone brings a dish to share, go skiing as a group and fill up cosy mountain chalets.
Once a year, in the fall, they meet up at my mom’s home and she makes an obscene amount of plum dumplings, served with a spiced plum sauce. It’s tradition.
Needless to say, I am quite the fan of these dumplings and I missed them dearly when I left home to live on my own. However, when I used to work in Vienna, I discovered their delicious and, dare I say even better cousins, the marillenknödels. Filled with apricots instead of plums, I find them even more flavourful and delicate.
This recipe will work wonderfully with both types of stone fruit. I wanted to make both but couldn’t find plums at the market so had to settle for extra large apricots. Traditionally you would fill each dumpling with a whole apricot, but, given the size of these, that was out of the question. I therefore filled each with half, replacing the apricot pip with a small sugar cube. As apricots are not particularly sweet when cooked and the dough itself has no sugar at all, it’s best if you do so as well.
Make sure to use floury potatoes, the type used for mashed potatoes and gnocchi. This will ensure your dough is light and fluffy instead of becoming tough and waxy.
My breadcrumbs are a little on the larger side, I like the way they caramelise better so I used panko here. However, they will stick less to the dumplings. If you prefer, feel free to use normal breadcrumbs instead, they will adhere better.
Finally, I used pasta flour for this recipe - a finely milled semolina. I find the taste is better and it absorbs moisture differently, leading to even fluffier dumplings. It is nowadays widely available in supermarkets.
I urge you to make the separate sauce as well. The biggest complaint with this type of dumplings is that they can become a little dry. An apricot sauce on the side and a spoonful of crème fraîche bring them to a whole new level of deliciousness.
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Ingredients (makes about 10 dumplings, depending on the size of your apricots)
For the dumplings:
450g (1lb) floury potatoes
150g (1 1/4 cups) pasta flour (very fine semolina)
10g (1/2 tbsp) salt
1 egg
10 small apricots or 5 large ones
10 sugar cubes
Breadcrumb coating
50 grams (1/4 cup) sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
100g (1cup) breadcrumbs or panko
50g (1/2 stick) butter
1 tsp cinnamon
For the sauce:
6 large apricots (approximately 300g), pitted and cubed
30g (2 tbsp) sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
To serve:
1 cup crème fraîche or sour cream
Start by making your dumplings. In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook your potatoes with the skin on for 20 minutes or until fork tender. Drain and let cool until easy to handle.
Peel the potatoes and place in a large bowl. With a potato masher or ricer purée them finely.
Add the flour, salt and pasta flour and bring the dough together with a wooden spoon. Don’t overwork it as we don’t want to develop the gluten. Let rest for 30 minutes.
Prepare the apricots. Pit the apricots and replace the pips with sugar cubes. If they are too big, as mine were, halve them and add a sugar cube to each half.
Prepare the breadcrumb coating. In a large pan melt the butter. Add the breadcrumbs, sugar, vanilla and cinnamon and mix well until toasted. Set aside.
Make the sauce. In a small saucepan add the cubed apricots and sugar. Cook until they start disintegrating, smell delicious, and the sugar is dissolved - about 10 minutes. You can blend the sauce at this point or serve it as is.
Cook the dumplings. Bring a large pan of water to a low boil (the dumplings are fragile and may disintegrate if the water is at a rolling boil). With wet hands (it will prevent the dough from sticking) encase each filled apricot in dough. Mine look a bit like rugby balls because I used halves, but normally they are more on the tennis ball shape side. Cover with a damp towel to prevent them from drying out.
When water is boiling, add the dumplings carefully, one by one. Make sure to not overcrowd the pan. Cook for about 10 minutes, until they rise to the surface. Drain very well individually and drop (not from a height!) in the prepared pan with breadcrumbs. Coat each dumpling as it’s coming out of the water, carefully, as they are rather fluffy and fragile.
When ready to serve, Place a few dumplings (depending on their size) on a plate with extra toasted breadcrumbs. Drizzle with apricot sauce and add a spoonful of crème fraîche if you’d like.
These will disappear under your very eyes if you make them for friends and, who knows, maybe you can start your own yearly tradition!