dumplings-msg - 1/20/08
Period dumplings and recipes using dumplings. Spetzle.
NOTE: See also the files: pasta-msg, bread-msg, breadmaking-msg, soup-msg, stews-bruets-msg, pierogies-msg.
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Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous
Stefan at florilegium.org
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Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 14:01:52
To: "Mark Harris" <mark_harris at quickmail>
From: Luznicky <we4 at widomaker.com>
Subject: Re: sca-cooks no potatoes!!!
>Clare said:
>>Try dumplings, herbed dumplings...onion dumplings.....sage
>>dumplings....when good they are very good in stews....they are pretty
>>tasty.
>
>Recipes? How do you make sure they are "good"?
>
>Or is this one of those things that most cooks just know how to do?
>Do I just drop biscuit dough into the soup or stew? As I said in the
>introduction, I'm still figuring out how to cook mundanely.
>
>These sound like they could be very tasty though I'm not sure about
>the texture.
>
> Stefan li Rous
2 c. all purpose flour
4 t. baking powder
1 c. milk
Mix together until it looks stretchy. Drop by teaspoons into your boiling broth.
Cover. Leave at a boil for 20 min. This also thickens your broth.
This is my simplest recipe. It can get more complicated, but not always
better.
Mikhail the Armorer
Tarkhan Khanate Bright Hawk
Great Household of the Dark Horde
we4 at widomaker.com
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 12:46:49
To: "Mark Harris" <mark_harris at quickmail>
From: Luznicky <we4 at widomaker.com>
Subject: Re: sca-cooks no potatoes!!
>>2 c. all purpose flour
>>4 t. baking powder
>>1 c. milk
>
>>mix together until it looks strechy. drop by teaspoons into your boiling
>>broth. cover. leave at a boil for 20 min. this also thickens your broth.
>>Mikhail the Armorer
>Thanks. This is pretty much what I was looking for. What kind of
>texture should the final product be? Gooey? Like a soggy bisquit?
>Like firm dough?
>
>To get herbed dumplings, onion dumpings, sage dumplings etc, do I
>just add herbs, cooked onions, dried sage etc to the dough?
>
>Stefan li Rous
When cooked the outside will have a gluey, transparent look and the inside will be dry and biscuity. To flavor, start by adding a teaspoon of dry herb. Increase until it tastes right to you or yours. I tend to season the food itself and not the dumplings. I have no idea how this
recipe will adapt to the addition of onions (I might try freeze dried if
fresh didn't work.)
Kyna
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 1997 19:59:21 -0400
From: "Philip W. Troy" <troy at asan.com>
To: sca-cooks at eden.com
Subject: Re: sca-cooks no potatoes!!!
Try dropping bread dough rolled into balls, or shortcrust pastry. The
Scots had (and have) a thing called hodgils, where the balls are made
of, essentially, an oatcake mixture. Served with salt (corned) beef,
nowadays. Also check some of the modern Italian gnocchi recipes; some of
them are pretty close to what would have been made in period. Also there
are some period "bag puddings" that are made from an herbed batter,
sometimes very lightly sweetened, cooked in a cloth in with the stew,
and opened on the side of the serving platter. I've had great success
with these.
Adamantius
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 98 00:26:26 -0500
From: Dottie Elliott <difirenze at usa.net>
Subject: SC - German Dumplings
I thought you all might enjoy these redactions. ...clarissa
In October, Bryn Gwlad's cooks guild redacted several dumpling recipes
from a new cookbook Clarissa picked up at Pennsic. All the recipes in
quotes are from "Sabina Welser's Cookbook" translated from "Das Kochbuch
der Sabina Welserin" (C. 1553) by Valoise Armstrong.
Chicken Dumplings
"193 How to make chicken dumplings
Take the meat from two chickens. After it is cooked chop it finely, mix
grated Parmesan cheese in with it and color it yellow and stir it
together. You should also put mace and pepper into it. After that prepare
a dough. Make a thin flat cake and put the above described filling on it
and form it into a dumpling and join the two ends together. Cook it in
broth as long as for hard boiled eggs and serve it warm."
6 oz cooked chicken
3/8 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/4 tsp mace
1/2 tsp pepper
pinch saffron in 1/4 cup hot water
Chop the chicken fine. Mix with the cheese and spices. Take saffron and
soak in hot water. Then add to chicken mix to color yellow. Mix well.
Place a little on a piece of dough and fold over to seal. Cook in boiling
chicken broth for 15 minutes. Drain and serve. (Mistress Meadbhb)
Notes: Good. Adding some salt would fit well.
Herb Dumplings
"119 If you would make boiled dumplings
Then take chard, as much as you like, some sage, marjoram and rosemary,
chop it together, also put grated cheese into it and beat eggs therein
until you think that it is right. Take also cinnamon, cloves, pepper and
raisins and put them into the dumpling batter. Let the dumplings cook, as
one cooks a hard-boiled egg, then they are ready."
2 1/2 cup chard
1 Tbsp sage
1 Tbsp marjoram
3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 Tbsp rosemary
1 cup raisins
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs, beaten
Chop the chard, sage, marjoram, and rosemary and then mix in the cheese.
Then add in the spices and raisins. Place a small amount on a piece of
dough and fold over and seal. Cook in boiling vegetable broth for 15
minutes. Drain and serve. (Lady Tabitha)
Notes: Good. Needs more cheese and more cinnamon.
Spinach Ravioli
"31 To make ravioli
Take spinach and blanch it as if you were making cooked spinach, and
chop it small. Take approximately one handful, when it is chopped, cheese
or meat from a chicken or capon that was boiled or roasted. Then take
twice as much cheese as herb, or of chicken an equal amount and beat two
or three eggs into it and make a good dough, put salt and pepper into it
and make a dough with good flour, as if you would make a tart, and when
you have made little flat cakes of dough then put a small ball of filling
on the edge of the flat cake and form it into a dumpling. And press it
together well along the edges and place it in broth and let it cook about
as long as for a soft-boiled egg. The meat should be finely chopped and
the cheese finely grated."
1/2 cup spinach
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 egg
1/2 tsp salt
3/8 tsp pepper
Blanch the spinach and drain. Chop fine and squeeze out excess water. Mix
spinach with cheese, eggs and spices. Place a little bit on a piece of
dough and fold over to seal. Cook in boiling chicken broth for 15
minutes. Drain and serve. (Baroness Clarissa)
Notes: Good but plain from lack of spices. Needs more cheese. Nutmeg
would go well with this.
Dumpling Dough
Since the Ravioli recipe said to "make a dough with good flour, as if you
would make a tart", we used this tart recipe's dough for all the
dumplings:
"70 A tart with plums which can be dried or fresh (also how to make tart dough)
Let them cook beforehand in wine and strain them and take eggs, cinnamon
and sugar. Bake the dough for the tart. That is made like so: take two
eggs and beat them. Afterwards stir flour therein until it becomes a
thick dough. Pour it on the table and work it well, until it is ready.
After that take somewhat more than half the dough and roll it into a flat
cake as wide as you would have your tart. Afterwards pour the plums on it
and roll out after that the other crust and cut it up, however you would
like it, and put it on top over the tart and press it together well and
let it bake. So one makes the dough for a tart."
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
3 eggs
Place the flour on a flat surface and make a hole in the center. Break
the eggs in the center and start mixing the eggs, slowly bringing in
flour until it all is incorporated. Add more flour if necessary so that
it is not sticky. Do not overwork the dough. Roll as thinly as possible!
Make small squares or rounds as you wish for the dumplings.
Notes: Thin, Thinner, Thinnest! The thinner the dough and the fuller the
dumpling the better!
Date: Sat, 1 May 1999 11:04:48 EDT
From: Varju at aol.com
Subject: Re: SC - Seeking wheat illumination - OOP
snowfire at mail.snet.net writes:
<< Are spaetzle made in the same way as Italian pasta is? >>
Well, the spatzle my mother makes is out of a sticky dough of flour, salt and
eggs. It is placed into a spatzle press and about an inch is squeezed out,
then cut off into a pot of boiling water. Boil until the spatzle rises to
the top of the pot. I have also seen it done without the spatzle press,
just having the dough on a cutting board where you are cutting short, thin
pieces off and pushing them into the water.
Major disclaimer, my mother is not German, but did learn how to make spatzle
in germany from my aunt and Omi.
Noemi
Windkeep Outlands
Cheyenne, Wyoming
Date: Sat, 01 May 1999 12:50:13 -0400
From: Philip & Susan Troy <troy at asan.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Seeking wheat illumination - OOP
Varju at aol.com wrote:
> Well, the spatzle my mother makes is out of a sticky dough of flour, salt and
> eggs. It is placed into a spatzle press and about an inch is squeezed out,
> then cut off into a pot of boiling water.
I gather you're describing a tool kinda like a potato ricer, but with
larger openings. Another one I've seen, which seems at least as common,
is a stainless-steel device which sits on top of the pot of water, with
a sort of hopper which you fill with the thick batter/dough, while
gravity and the odd push from a spoon form the spaetzel as they go
through holes in the bottom of the hopper. The hopper then slides
against a blade, cutting the spaetzeln off to the length you choose.
> Boil until the spatzle rises to
> the top of the pot. I have also seen it done with out the spatzle press,
> just having the dough on a cutting board where you are cutting short, thin
> pieces off and pushing them into the water.
That's a good way too, if slower. I think the non-uniform look you get
doing them by hand enhances the whole rustic-y spaetzel experience.
I confess some of the best, if really unorthodox, spaetzeln I've ever
had were made as part of a warm duck breast / red cabbage salad, and
they had a small amount of some kind of coarse-ground mustard mixed into
the batter.
Adamantius
Date: Sat, 1 May 1999 12:20:40 -0700 (PDT)
From: Huette von Ahrens <ahrenshav at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Seeking wheat illumination - OOP
My grandmother was born in Prussia and made spatzle
more like dumplings, by just taking spoonfuls of dough
and dropping them into the boiling water. From all
of the German cookbooks that I have, the method of
making spatzle varies from region to region, so
therefore, all are correct, whether you put them
thru a ricer, or a spatzle press, cut off lumps or
use a spoon.
Huette
Date: Sat, 1 May 1999 23:53:53 -0500
From: LYN M PARKINSON <allilyn at juno.com>
Subject: Re: SC - Seeking wheat illumination - OOP
>>Are spaetzle made in the same way as Italian pasta is? And what are
all those different flours they have in Germany? <<
I don't know, Elysant, what are the flours are, but I think they are
different kinds of milling. We have bread flour, all-purpose, and cake
flour, which is very fine. They have a lot more.
The spaetzle are not made the same way as pasta. There are now little
machines that squeeze the dough out into little worms of noodles, but my
son's father-in-law taught me to cut them, as has been done for hundreds
of years. You mix up a sort of gloppy dough, and with a knife that is
about 1" broad scoop some from the bowl onto the board, dip the knife in
the pot of boiling water, scoop up a little, sort of swirl it into the
dough/batter, making it gloppier, then cut rapidly, sort of shaving off
bits that the knife edge pushes into the boiling water. When the
spaetzle cook, they float up, and every so often, you transfer them from
the cooking pot to a warm pottery dish with butter in it, and swish to
coat with the melted butter.
I taught a small class at one of the Cooks' Collegiums that Alys
Katherine sponsored in Ohio. Much mess and fun, and they disappeared
fast at the pot luck. Last time I cooked them for a feast, I was staying
with friends who had a 3 month old baby. She wanted to be held up to
look around, and the spaetzle had to get done. On the theory that
mothers had been minding the baby and cooking for a few centuries, we
worked out a way that held Malinda in the crook of the arm, fairly far
from boiling noodle steam, with the board handle in the left hand, knife
in the right, and she had her first cooking lesson.
Allison
allilyn at juno.com, Barony Marche of the Debatable Lands, Pittsburgh, PA
Kingdom of Aethelmearc
Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 16:07:46 -0700 (PDT)
From: Huette von Ahrens <ahrenshav at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: SC - spaetzle
The cookbook that I have "The Cuisines of Germany", by
Horst Scharfenberg, mentions a book called
"Spätzle-Breviary" by Dr. Karl Lerch and published in
1966. That is all the information that I have been
able to find. Unfortunately, Mr. Scharfenberg has no
bibliography in his cookbook. Mr. Scharfenberg quotes
Dr. Lerch in saying that spätzle probably was from a
medieval monestary.
Huette
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 01:31:33 +0100
From: Thomas Gloning <Thomas.Gloning at germanistik.uni-giessen.de>
Subject: Re: SC - spaetzle
Thanks a lot for the publication data. I will look and see if my local
libraries in Tuebingen have the Lerch book. The dictionaries I used up
to now are of not much help, even the "Schwaebisches Woerterbuch" with
its seven volumes! Strange. The suebian Cotta cookery book of 1764 has
no Spaetzle (as far as I can see, screening the almost 700 pages), only
several kinds of "Knoepflein". But whereas todays "Knoepfle" are quite
similar to Spaetzle, the Cotta-recipes for "Knoepflein" have little
resemblance to Spaetzle. Vollmer, in her "Sprachliches aus
altschwaebischen Kochbuechern" does not mention Spaetzle. I still
believe that Spaetzle are a 'late' dish, but I would be glad to find out
that the view of 'medieval spaetzle' is correct.
Thomas
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 01:33:29 +0100
From: Thomas Gloning <Thomas.Gloning at germanistik.uni-giessen.de>
Subject: SC - Lerch on spaetzle
I found the two editions of Karl Lerch's Spaetzle-Brevier. The first
edition was published in 1962 in Tuebingen (where I live), the second
edition was published in 1966 in Reutlingen (not far from Tuebingen).
The University library has the first edition. Thanks to my antiquarian
booksellers, I now have a copy of the second edition. A funny book.
The upshot is that neither the etymology of the word "spaetzle" nor the
culinary history of the dish spaetzle is clear.
Someone asked about the etymology of the word "spaetzle". According to
Lerch, there are three possible explanations, roughly: (1) dumplings
were called "Spatzen" because of some kind of similarity in form with
sparrows, from there the "spaetzle" ('little sparrows') were derived;
(2) the word is derived from italian _spezzare; spezzato_ 'to cut to
pieces', because the dough is cut to pieces before it is boiled; (3)
there might be some connection to italian _pasta_ or french _pa^te_.
Lerch concludes that up to now nobody knows about the correct etymology
("Woher die Spaetzle ihre Namen haben? Nix Genaues weiß man nicht!" (p.
37)). -- If I had to place a bet, I would choose option (1), because the
use of "Spatzen" 'dumplings' is often attested in texts and the
development to _spaetzle_ seems possible to me.
Now, the culinary history of spaetzle is difficult to track down for two
reasons.
First, because the words "spatzen", "spaetzle", "knoepfle" etc. were
often used for quite different things. There are clear examples from the
18th century that "Spatzen" or "Knoepfle" denoted dumplings or little
dumplings. It is not clear how, when and if at all the development from
_Spatzen_ 'dumplings' to _spaetzle_ 'the special type of noodles'
happended.
Second, there is the problem of the interpretation of pictorial
representations one has to rely on. Lerch tells us that a 19th century
professor (Sachsse) concluded from a picture in a
'Sachsenspiegel'-manuscript (a very important juridical text), that the
suebian duke was represented with a utensil for making _Knoepfle_ or
_Spaetzle_ and thus was an example for an early _Spaetzlesschwab_ (a
suebian who likes spaetzle). -- Now, the utensil looks like sort of a
shovel which is hardly a typical utensil for preparing spaetzle. Anyway:
according to Lerch, Prof. Sachse made up the myth of the suebian eating
spaetzle since the middle ages ("... so war doch von Professor Sachsse
der Mythos der seit dem frühesten Mittelalter Spaetzle essenden Schwaben
begründet worden"; p. 30).
To conclude: Lerch quotes no evidence that there were spaetzle in the
Middle Ages. To the contrary: he describes how the myth of the medieval
'spaetzlesschwab' could arise. -- Thus, I still believe that spaetzle
with their specific preparation are a 'late' dish from the 18th or even
19th century. _If_ spaetzle were a characteristic dish for the suebians
since the middle ages, it would be strange to me that they are not
mentioned or described more clearly and more often. -- But I will keep
my eyes open!
I am happy to have the 'Spaetzle-Brevier' on my shelfes now! Thanks
again, Huette, for mentioning this funny book.
Thomas
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1999 23:29:17 -0500
From: "Robin Carroll-Mann" <harper at idt.net>
Subject: SC - Recipes: Dumplings
Recipe for grater-made dumplings, as promised.
Source: Ruperto de Nola, _Libro de Guisados_, Spanish, 1529
Translation: Lady Brighid ni Chiarain (Robin Carroll-Mann)