recipe Thuringia Potatoe Dumplings

ingredients:

Preparation:

This is how to turn the dumpling ingredients into dumplings: The peeled, raw potatoes have to be sulphured in a closed container (ignite the sulphur stick ca. 4 cm and close the cover). Sulphuring is necessary in order to keep the potatoes from turning grey and gives the dumplings their nice white colour – and the sulphur acid gives them their characteristic zesty flavour. Two-thirds of the raw potatoes are grated. You can use a modern kitchen machine or an old potato grate. The moisture of the grated, slightly salted potatoes is then pressed out by hand using a cloth bag. If you aren’t strong enough, you can knot the potatoes into a piece of linen and let the washing machine spin out the moisture. Boil the remaining third of the potatoes in slightly salted water and make thin mashed potatoes with ½ l. milk. Loosen up the firmly packed dry grated potatoes in a large bowl. Then let the mashed potatoes come to a boil and quickly pour them over the grated potatoes, scalding them. Quickly and thoroughly stir the dumpling ingredients together; then, with wet hands, mould the dumplings into round balls with 2-3 bread cubes that have been sautéed in butter in the middle of each one. The dumplings are then cooked in a large pot of simmering salted water for ca. 10-15 minutes. When they rise to the top and some of the potato fibres are shiny and translucent, they are done! They are perfect if – when served on a warmed plate - they make a cracking sound when you open them with two forks, as though they were electrified. The potato fibres are supposed to shine translucently and the dumplings should be light and cotton-like. If you do not achieve these results the first time, do not be discouraged. A bit of experience and practice is necessary in order to be successful. A lot depends on the kind of potatoes used. Too much starch in the potatoes makes a stickier dough, while if there is too little starch, the dumplings will fall apart while cooking. After all: Our ancestors took 200 years to perfect this recipe.